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-THE 

VANISHING COMRADE 



Was it Kate Marshall? She scarcely knew. 









The 

Vanishing Comrade 

By 

Ethel Cook Eliot' 



Frontispiece 

by 

Jane Hedman / 


Garden City New York 

Doubleday, Page & Company 
1924 












■* 


COPYRIGHT, 1924, BY 
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE Sc COMP AN Y V 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES 

AT 

THE COUNTRY LI7E PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y. 

Fir ft Edition 


OCT -9 1924 ■ 0 

©C1A8082G4 L- ' 


VO 


AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED 
TO 

MY SISTER HELEN 




































, 











CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAG* 

I. Great Aunt Katherine Commands . i 

II. The Boy in the Flowery, Dragony 

Picture Frame.19 

III. The Comrade Does Not Appear ... 30 

IV. Little Orchard House, Beware! . . 44 

V. Kate Makes Up a Face.59 

VI. “I Will Pay for It”.69 

VII. “Even So-”.86 

VIII. Kate Meets a Detective .... 92 

IX. Something of Fairy in It . . . . 106 

X. In the Mirror. 116 

XL Kate Takes the Helm. 135 

XII. The Special Delivery ..... 149 

XIII. “You Thief!”. 160 

XIV. The Stranger in the Garden . . . 174 

XV. Kate on Guard ....... 194 

XVI. One End of the String. 204 












PAGB 


vi CONTENTS 

CHAPTER 

XVII. Into the Orchard House .... 219 

XVIII. The Last Room. 236 

XIX. Elsie Confides. 249 

XX. A Farewell in the Dark .... 261 

XXI. Like the Stars. 269 





THE 

VANISHING COMRADE 


The Vanishing Comrade 


CHAPTER I 


GREAT AUNT KATHERINE COMMANDS 
WO boys and a girl climbed down out of the 



A bus from Middletown when it made its final stop 
in front of the summer hotel at the head of Broad 
Street. The boys, between them, were carrying the 
girl's books and a goodly number of their own, for 
they were returning from the last session of the 
school year. To-morrow summer holidays would 
begin. They nodded a friendly good-bye to the driver 
and started off up the steep little elm-roofed street 
that sloped directly up to Ashland College, an insti¬ 
tution for girls, perched on the highest plateau of this 
hill town. The boys' father was a professor in that 
college and the girl's mother an instructor. But in 
spite of their privilege of living in the lap of learning 
these young people had to take a daily nine-mile bus 
ride down into the bigger village of Middletown if 
they themselves were to get college preparation. 

The boys were twins. They were tall and spare, 
even for boys of sixteen, and seemed all angles. 
They had thick thatches of auburn hair, whimsical 


2 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

faces, and generous, clear-cut mouths. The girl 
was sturdy, slightly square in build, with brown, 
straight bobbed hair. The bobbed hair was parted 
at the side and brushed away in a wing from her 
forehead, and this gave her a boyish, ready look. 
Her eyes were hazel and very clear and confident in 
their level glance, but when she smiled, as she did 
often, they crinkled up into mere slits of eyes, because 
they were slightly narrow to begin with, and then 
she seemed oddly Puckish. Her mouth was wide 
and her lips rather full, but for all of that, because of 
its uptilted corners, it was really a very nice mouth. 
She trudged along now between her two friends, the 
corners of her mouth more uptilted than usual. 

“Oh, Im so glad it’s vacation! At last!” she was 
saying. “Mother and I are going to have just the 
nicest summer. We’re going to take long walks we 
never took, make a new vegetable garden, and eat 
almost every one of our meals out-of-doors when it 
isn’t raining. We may even if it does rain! When 
will your tennis court be done?” 

“We’re going to get right at it to-morrow morn¬ 
ing,” Sam Hart, the twin on her left, answered. “It 
ought to be finished by the middle of July or sooner 
if they’ll let us borrow the roller from the Hotel. 
Then if your mother is as patient as usual with us, 
we may be champions ourselves before the summer’s 
over.” 

“She’s crazy to play,” Kate assured them. “But 
she says we must remember she hasn’t touched a 


GREAT AUNT KATHERINE 3 

racket in years and that you have to keep in practice 
to be any good at tennis. It was seventeen years ago 
she won that cup at the Oakdale Country Club. ,, 

“She must have begun playing when she was in 
creepers,” Sam exclaimed. “I thought it was a reg¬ 
ular cup, a real and regular tournament affair.” 

“ It was, of course. And she was nineteen, foolish! ” 

“She’s thirty-six now then.” Lee did the arith¬ 
metic. “It’s funny that, being so old as all that, 
she has always seemed just one of us. Where did 
you ever get such a mother, Kate?” 

“Oh, I took my time about choosing,” Kate 
answered, apparently seriously. “I didn’t snatch 
at the first thing offered. I said 'better not have 
any mother at all than one who isn’t magnificent.’ 
So I kept my head and refused to consider anything 
commonplace. You know the result, gentlemen.” 

The boys did not bother to respond even with a 
laugh. They were used to Kate’s nonsense. 

But now in their climb up the steep elm-shaded 
street they had reached the college campus on the 
“Heights” and Professor Hart’s house set into its 
corner. 

“I’ll take my books,” Kate said. “Thanks for 
carrying ’em. If I do a lot of weeding in the court, 
perhaps it’ll pay you a little for having been such 
good pack-horses for me all this year.” 

But Sam shook his head at the outstretched hands. 
“I’m coming on with you,” he declared. “How 
about you, Lee?” 


4 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


“Me, too,” Lee responded. “Wait a second till 
I pitch these things on to the piazza.” 

But Kate protested. “No, don’t. It’s almost 
supper time. The bus was late. We’ll be busy, 
Mother and I. Come after supper, instead, and help 
us decide where the new garden is to be. Perhaps 
mother will play Mah Jong with us.” 

There was nothing to do but agree when Kate 
took a dictatorial tone. The boys meekly gave a 
pile of books into her arms and turned in at their 
own walk. 

Kate’s mouth kept its uptilted corners as she 
went on alone, humming to herself and thinking 
pleasant thoughts. She skirted the forsaken cam¬ 
pus a little way and then took a short-cut across its 
lawns. She knew that the last student had left to¬ 
day, and there would be no “grass police” to shoo 
her back to the paths. 

“It’s great having all the girls gone,” she mused. 
“Now I shall have a little of Mother to myself again.” 

Kate was justified in her pleasure in the girls’ de¬ 
parture, for those older girls did take an unconscion¬ 
able amount of Katherine Marshall’s time and 
thought. Of course, Katherine had to teach them, 
Kate realized—that was how she earned their living. 
But she did not understand why, outside of class¬ 
room hours, they need be always underfoot. Kate 
was proud of her mother’s popularity, but often 
exasperated by it, too; for those older girls never by 
any chance paid any attention to Kate herself. 


GREAT AUNT KATHERINE 5 

They were polite, of course, but most perfunctorily; 
it was her mother they came to see and on her least 
word and motion they hung almost with bated breath. 
The truth was that these indifferent, superior girls, 
always present and never of any use to her, turned 
the college year for Katherine into a loneliness that 
even her mother scarcely realized. 

There were the Hart boys, of course, always. But 
boys cannot take the place of a girl comrade. Kate’s 
mother was all the girl comrade she had. That was 
why she had not let the boys come with her now. 
For once, she would be sure to find her mother alone, 
and the hour would take on, for Kate, something of 
the nature of a reunion. 

The house she now approached, across the street 
from the campus to which it turned its low and vine- 
hung back, had formerly been a barn. The college 
had made it over for Kate’s mother into a charming 
cottage which despite its turned back was still part 
of the college property. Kate found her mother 
sitting on the little garden bench at the side of the 
big double doors that had once been the carriage en¬ 
trance and now stood open all spring and summer 
facing the hazy valley. Her cheek was resting on 
her hand and the expression in her eyes was a very 
far-away one, a farther away than the valley one. 
But she became very present when she heard Kate’s 
step. 

“Oh, Kate, I thought you would never come!” 
she exclaimed. “Read this letter.” She picked it 


6 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


up from the bench beside her and handed it to Kate. 
“It’s from your Great Aunt Katherine!” 

“What! Again?” 

Why Kate exclaimed “Again” would be hard to 
say, for within her memory Great Aunt Katherine 
had only written her mother once before, and that 
was all of two years ago! That letter had been to 
tell of the sudden death of a semi-relative, a woman of 
whom, until that time, Kate had never heard. 
Would this have news of another death ? It must be 
something of importance that had wrung a second 
letter from Great Aunt Katherine. 

Flinging her books on the grass, and following 
them herself to sit at her mother’s feet, Kate opened 
the smooth, thick, creamy sheet and read: 

My dear Katherine: 

I am asking you to send your daughter Katherine to spend the 
month of July with me here in my Oakdale house. Unexpected 
business in Boston is keeping me from my usual trip abroad this 
summer. I do not know whether I told you when acquainting 
you with Gloria’s tragic death that her daughter was left with¬ 
out home or protection of any sort and that I proposed to take 
her in. But such was the case. Naturally, ever since, the 
child has been peculiarly lonely here in Oakdale. And now that 
she no longer has her day school in Boston to occupy her, the 
situation is a really trying one. It has occurred to me that 
Elsie and your Katherine are very nearly of an age, both fifteen, 
and that they might find themselves companionable. So I 
am asking you to forget old grievances, as I shall, and send 
your daughter to me for a month’s visit. I shall plan parties 
and theatres and good times for them, and promise you that it 
will be every bit as gay as it was when you were a young girl 
here, and not too independent then to let your aunt give herself 


GREAT AUNT KATHERINE 


7 

pleasure by planning for yours. I have looked up trains and 
find that by leaving Middletown at one o’clock, Katherine, 
with only one change, will arrive in the South Station in Bos¬ 
ton at six-fifteen. I shall expect her on that train Saturday of 
this week, and Bertha, Elsie’s maid, will meet her and bring her 
out here in time for dinner. If for any reason that is not a 
convenient train for Katherine to take, will you please wire me 
what time she will arrive? 

Sincerely, 

Aunt Katherine. 

Kate looked up at her mother, dazed. “Just like 
that! ” she exclaimed. “ Does Great Aunt Katherine 
expect us to obey her just like that?” 

Katherine was grave. “Yes, she has always done 
things like this. That’s been the trouble. And 
when things don’t go exactly as she has commanded 
that they should, she is at first unbelieving and then 
furious.” 

“Hm. And who is Elsie?” 

“ Elsie is Nick’s little girl, and a sort of foster-niece 
to Aunt Katherine now, I suppose.” 

“It was Nick’s wife who was killed in the automo¬ 
bile accident in France, wasn’t it? But why haven’t 
you told me about her, about this Elsie? I’ve al¬ 
ways wanted a cousin so, Mother!” 

“Well, she isn’t exactly a cousin, you know. But 
even so, if Nick and I hadn’t quarrelled, if we had 
stayed as we were, in the course of things you would 
have known each other and perhaps have been very 
dear friends. It would have been natural.” 

“Oh, Mother—quarrels! When you are so lovely, 




o 


8 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 

how have people quarrelled with you so? It’s a— 
paradox. Now don’t say Eve used the wrong word! 
—But here’s more, more to the letter!” 

Kate had turned the letter over and discovered a 
postscript on the back. Katherine, who had missed it, 
bent down, and they read it cheek to cheek. 

P. S. I will add, for this will perhaps make your acceptance 
the quicker to come to, that Nicholas’s name is never mentioned 
here, either by me or the servants, or even Elsie herself. So 
that end of things need cause you no anxiety. Elsie is a charm¬ 
ing, well-mannered child. 


That paragraph had not been intended for Kate’s 
eyes. Katherine understood that at once, but it 
was all that she did understand about it. She 
frowned, puzzled. 

“Notice how she says ‘Make your acceptance 
quicker to come to’,” Kate pointed out sharply. 
“She takes it for granted you’ll come to it, appar¬ 
ently. If there is any question, it’s only one of time. 
But why isn’t Nick’s name mentioned?” 

Katherine shrugged. “I am afraid she must have 
quarrelled with him/ too, just as she did with your 
father and me. But if that’s so it must be terrible 
for both of them, since he owes her so much and she 
counted on him so to make up for Father and me and 
later you, Kate, and everything! How could he 
quarrel with her? Why, he should have put up with 
anything!” 

Katherine’s cheek was again on her hand. Her 


GREAT AUNT KATHERINE 9 

face was all puzzle. “And why should Elsie be 
lonely in Oakdale?” she went on aloud, but almost 
to herself now. “Oakdale is quite a gay little place, 
and I know very well there are plenty of young people 
there. Some of them are children of friends of mine, 
friends I haven’t seen since I was married. Why, 
there are even the Denton children, just next door 
to Aunt Katherine’s! It’s all very mysterious, 
Elsie’s being lonely.” 

But mystery where Great Aunt Katherine was 
concerned was no new thing to Kate. Whenever 
she thought about Aunt Katherine at all it was always 
to wonder. Why should her mother be estranged so 
entirely from her only living relative, this aunt for 
whom she had been named, and who had been asecond 
mother to her after her own mother had died, when 
she was a very little girl ? Kate could never under¬ 
stand that situation. Katherine was so peculiarly 
gentle and forgiving and lovable! How could any 
one stay angry with her? 

Last year, when Kate was fourteen, Katherine had 
tried to explain things to her a little. She had said 
then that Great Aunt Katherine’s money was the 
cause of the feud. Only it was not the usual 
trouble that money makes in families. It was not 
that Aunt Katherine was selfish or proud. It was— 
oh, absurdity—that she was over-generous! She 
expected to force her generosity on her family 
whether they wanted it or not. It had begun with 
Kate’s Grandfather Frazier. He and Great Aunt 


IO 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


Katherine were half-brother and sister. When 
Katherine was about Kate’s age now, Grandfather 
Frazier had failed in business and the very same 
month Great Aunt Katherine had inherited a 
fortune from an uncle on her mother’s side. Until 
that turn of fortune’s wheel Aunt Katherine had 
been a school teacher living with her half-brother 
and giving her spare time to mothering her name¬ 
sake niece. When she woke up one morning to find 
herself a wealthy—a very wealthy—woman, she im¬ 
mediately decreed that her brother should share the 
good fortune with her just as she had for so long 
shared his home with him and his child. But Grand¬ 
father Frazier’s pride forbade him to acquiesce in 
that. The uncle was not his uncle, and it was not 
only his pride but his sense of propriety that influ¬ 
enced him in his firm decision not to accept one cent 
from Aunt Katherine. All that he would allow her 
to do to help his financial situation was to buy the 
house from him in which they were living so that with 
the money he might pay his debts. Thereafter he 
insisted that she was his landlady and he made a 
fetish until the month of his death of being on time 
with the absurdly small rent. 

Aunt Katherine had built herself a large and man¬ 
sionlike house on part of the land that went with 
her brother’s little house. And since he distinctly 
limited her in the things she might do for his 
daughter, she adopted, suddenly and to every one’s 
amazement, a poor young boy, with no background 


GREAT AUNT KATHERINE n 

whatever, who had been brought up in a “Home,” 
and who at the time of her discovering him was work¬ 
ing in a factory. She prepared him herself for col¬ 
lege, sent him to Harvard, and thrust him, almost 
head first, into the “younger set” in Oakdale. He 
had married Gloria, a beautiful young Bostonian 
but with no especial “connections.” That was all 
that Kate knew of him, except for this late knowledge 
that he had a daughter. 

Kate could understand her grandfather’s pride, 
dimly. But her mother’s case was not so clear to 
her, not quite. Her mother had married a rising 
young diplomat, a man of supposedly some wealth 
and assuredly fine ancestry. But on his death, 
not long after Kate’s birth, it was discovered that 
there was not a cent to which the young widowed 
mother could lay claim. Katherine had never ex¬ 
plained to Kate how this had happened. She 
hardly knew herself perhaps, because the processes of 
Wall Street were a maze to her. Almost gleefully, 
Aunt Katherine had seized upon this opportunity to 
offer her niece a home with her and a substantial 
allowance so that she might feel independent in that 
home. Katherine had refused point blank. And 
Aunt Katherine, now very sensitive on the subject 
of rejected generosities, had made a clean break with 
her namesake, washed her hands, and dropped her 
out of her life, much as one might drop a thistle that 
had pricked too unreasonably. 

Katherine, determined to earn her own and her 


12 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


little daughter’s way, had obtained an instructorship 
here at Ashland College, worked hard and happily 
ever since, and gloried in her independence. 

The whole reason for this choice of poverty and 
hard work Katherine had not told Kate. But she 
had hinted that there was a very deep reason and one 
that justified her. Sometime, perhaps, she would dis¬ 
close it. Meanwhile, Kate gave all this little thought, 
and was only brooding over it now because of the 
letter in her hand. 

After a minute she said firmly, “If Great Aunt 
Katherine thinks I’m going to leave you here alone 
on this deserted hill-top for a whole month of our 
precious vacation, she has a surprise in store. Shall 
we write or wire our regrets, Mother?” 

“We’d better write,” Katherine answered, getting 
up suddenly and beginning in an unusually energetic 
way to pull up weeds from the lily-of-the-valley bed 
under the window. “I shall write that Saturday is 
too soon, for there must be some preparation on our 
part for such a visit. By next Tuesday, though, I 
should think you could be ready.” 

Kate turned her head to follow her mother with 
amazed eyes. “You don’t mean I’m to go, Mother?” 

“Yes, I want you to go. I want you very much 
to go. Aunt Katherine apparently needs you. I 
think, though, she must be drawing on her imagina¬ 
tion a bit as to the loneliness of Oakdale for Elsie, 
especially since she herself says there will be parties 
and good times for you. You can’t have parties 


GREAT AUNT KATHERINE 


i3 

without young people! Even so, her saying she 
needs you makes our acceptance not only dignified 
but imperative.” 

“But to leave you here alone! How could I ever 
do that? What are you thinking of?” 

Katherine laughed at her daughter then. She was 
extraordinarily pretty when she laughed, startlingly 
pretty. But when she sobered, as she was bound to 
do too quickly, she was quite different, still lovely 
but not startling. Her face, sober, was intensely 
earnest. She had a rather square and strong chin 
but with wide, melting gray eyes to offset it. Her 
dark curly hair, which when undone came just to her 
shoulders, could be held in place at her neck with only 
a shell pin or two, it was so amenable in its curly crisp¬ 
ness. Her cheeks and little slim hands were tanned, 
but with healthy colour showing through, making 
her, Kate often said, exactly the colour of a golden 
peach. She was slim and very graceful and not tall. 

But in spite of all Katherine’s loveliness and femi¬ 
nine charm, the impression one gained from her 
was one of over-earnestness, a fire of intense purpose 
steadily, even fiercely burning under the outwardly 
gay and light manner. 

Now she was laughing. “Why shouldn’t you 
leave me alone?” she asked. “And I won’t be so 
alone, either. The Harts are staying. The boys 
will be my protectors and my playfellows both. I’ve 
been a fortunate woman all these years to have two 
such boys as well as my girl! And three mornings a 





i 4 THE VANISHING COMRADE, 

week, you know, I shall be busy helping Mr. Hart 
with his cataloguing. . . . Now we shall have 

to collect all our wits and think about suitable clothes 
for you.” 

Kate’s heart began to beat. When she had read 
the letter she had not let herself even contemplate 
what going would mean, not for an instant; for she 
had not dreamed her mother would so fall in with 
Aunt Katherine’s plan. But since she had fallen in 
with it, since she wanted her to go—well, it was very 
exciting! For the first time she might have for a 
comrade a girl, a girl of her own age, a chum! For 
if Elsie, that stranger unheard of until a few minutes 
ago, was lonely, what was she, Kate Marshall? Oh, 
she would surely be gladder of Elsie than Elsie could 
possibly be of her! 

She went to the border of the lily-of-the-valley bed 
and began weeding beside her mother. 

“I don’t see what we’ll do about clothes,” she 
said a little tremulously, not yet really believing 
in this new vista that seemed opening before her, like 
the valley there, at her very feet. “ If I do go, I sup¬ 
pose Aunt Katherine will expect me to dress for 
breakfast and dinner and supper and in between 
times in that splendid house of hers.” 

“No, not quite so bad as that; but she certainly 
will want you to have—let’s see—two ordinary 
gingham dresses, a little dinner frock, a party frock, 
a white dress for church, a sport coat and hat, a 
garden hat, a street hat, a street suit, a-” 


GREAT AUNT KATHERINE 15 

But Kate interrupted this list with a quick laugh. 
“ She’ll want in vain, then. Let’s get down to busi¬ 
ness and just discuss the must-be’s, if I am to be a pig 
and go and leave you here alone for July with a vaca¬ 
tion on your hands.” 

Katherine straightened up, brushing the soil from 
her fingers. Her quick ear had caught a joyous lilt 
in the voice and laugh that to an ordinary ear would 
have sounded merely dry. Her own heart leapt in 
sympathy with Kate’s. 

“Fortunately there’s my pink organdie. That 
must do for dinners,” the mother began, counting on 
her earth-stained fingers. 

“Pardon, Mother darling, my pink organdie. It’s 
been mine for over a year. Why will you go on call¬ 
ing things yours for years and years and years after 
they have descended? There’s my pink organdie 
then. It’ll have to do for church and for parties and 
for summer best just as it would if I were here. Two 
gingham dresses almost new. The blue flannel—but 
that will be too warm and scratchy for July, I’m 
afraid. Oh, Mother, that’s just all. I simply can’t go 
to Great Aunt Katherine’s, and I’ll never know Elsie! ” 

“Of course you can. Haven’t we always found a 
way to do the things we really wanted? Wait a 
minute. There’s my new white linen. I shall fix 
that for you. But your gingham dresses will never 
do, not for Oakdale. Never!” 

“You’re not to give your white linen to me. It’s 
the prettiest thing you’ve got.” 


16 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

“Hush! It will make a charming street suit. It 
will need a black silk tie and a patent-leather belt. 
I can see you in it.” 

“You can, but you won’t!” But when Kate saw 
her mother’s dazed, puzzled little frown that in¬ 
variably met her rare impertinences, she relented. 
“Oh, Mother,” she cried, “if I’m to have your very 
best things added to mine, of course I shall be per¬ 
fectly fixed. It will be a regular trousseau.” 

“I don’t need anything but these old smocks, 
staying here,” Katherine insisted. “And that’s 
exactly what I shall do, give you everything of mine 
that can possibly be of any use. For once in your 
life you are going to have just an ordinary young girl 
good time. And if you and Elsie do hit it off, per¬ 
haps Aunt Katherine will consent to her coming 
back with you for the rest of the vacation. Come, 
let’s spread all our possibilities out on the beds and 
see what there is!” 

“Yes, after we’ve pared the potatoes for supper,” 
Kate agreed, trying desperately to hold on to her last 
shreds of casualness and poise. “We had better 
have supper to-night, I suppose, whether I go to 
Great Aunt Katherine’s or not. It must be six 
o’clock now.” 

Katherine threw an arm across Kate’s shoulder as 
they went through the big door. “How fortunate it 
is,” she said, not for the first time, “that I have such a 
steady, common-sensible little girl!” 

But Kate would not abide her own hypocrisy. 


GREAT AUNT KATHERINE 


17 

“Oh, Mother, don’t make me feel cheap!” she ex¬ 
claimed. “You know perfectly well that Em just 
bursting with excitement, only I’m ashamed to show 
it, for it’s you who are going to be left at home doing 
just the same old things and seeing just the same old 
people and everything.” 

“But I’m happy doing just that,” Katherine hur¬ 
ried to assure her. “Why, you yourself, Kate, have 
been looking forward to your vacation here and plan¬ 
ning it with such pleasure!” 

“Ye—es. But that was before this came. Now 
I don’t see how I could bear the thought of just stay¬ 
ing here! Now that I’m going to have pretty clothes 
and go to parties and meet some boys and girls, and 
have a girl chum of my own—why, what I was so 
looking forward to doesn’t seem anything at all. I’ve 
suddenly waked up, and there’s a big door open right 
in front of me, bigger than our funny old front door! 
I’m going through it, right into such fun! Only I’m 
leaving you behind. That isn’t fair.” 

Katherine was quick to understand. Kate’s whole 
mood was as real to her as though it were her own. 
She said, “But don’t you see, dear, I had all that fun 
a thousand times over when I was a girl. Aunt 
Katherine gave me parties galore and took me to the 
theatre as often as Father would let her and there 
was anything worth seeing. And now that you are to 
have some of that life for a month, I am delighted. 
I only wish Aunt Katherine had asked you sooner. 
I have truly always hoped she would. Only, I sup- 


i8 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


pose, she thought I was like Father and wouldn’t 
accept things for you any more than for myself. And 
oh, Katie dear, do try to be patient with Aunt Kather¬ 
ine, no matter what she does or says! Perhaps you 
will make up a little to her for what I have taken 
away.” 

They stood now in the kitchen, facing each other. 
Suddenly Kate laughed, her nicest laugh that screwed 
up her eyes into slits and turned her into a Puck. 
“Let’s put off supper then,” she cried. “Stodgy 
old suppers we can have any night. Let’s get out 
all the clothes we’ve got and just plan. I’m not going 
to let you touch any of your good ones for me. I’m 
truly not. But there may be some old things we’ve 
forgotten.” 

“Now you’re really common-sensible, my dear,” 
Katherine affirmed. “Before it was only pretend 
common-sensibleness.” 

And arm-in-arm, without one look at the kitchen 
clock which now was pointing to all of quarter past 
six, they went through the funny, merry little barn 
house toward the bedrooms. 


CHAPTER II 

THE BOY IN THE FLOWERY, DRAGONY PICTURE FRAME 

TOURING the next few days of hurried preparation 
for the visit the Hart boys found themselves 
almost entirely left out of the life in the little barn 
house, the house that ordinarily served as a second 
home for them. 

“No time for boys to-day,” Kate would call out 
crisply when they appeared at windows or door. 
“Woman’s business is afoot. We’re too busy even 
to look at you.” 

And Katherine, who was usually so much more 
easily beguiled and quick to see their side in any 
argument, for once echoed Kate and upheld her in 
her determination to stick to the tasks they had set 
themselves. 

In spite of all Kate’s protests, Katherine’s new 
white linen was ripped to pieces and remade for the 
traveller into a jaunty street suit. With a black tie 
and narrow black patent-leather belt, when it was 
finished it looked as though it might have come from 
some fashionable shop in New York. Kate could not 
help being delighted. The pink organdie, which had 
done Kate duty for best all last summer, and Kather¬ 
ine for best for several summers before that, was now 




o 


19 


20 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


freshened with new lace and decorated with narrow 
black velvet ribbon. It was not only becoming, but 
quite up-to-date, and when it was finished and Kate 
surveyed herself in it in the glass, standing on a chair 
to see it all, they both decided that Kate would be 
able to put clothes definitely out of her mind when 
she was wearing it, for it was quite appropriate for 
all the occasions it was destined to grace. 

And finally, Katherine’s pretty bedroom was 
robbed of its month-old chintz curtains which, under 
her magic, in the space of two days only, became two 
simple but unique and pretty morning dresses for 
Kate. Now all that remained to be thought of in 
the way of clothes was the travelling suit. 

“My navy blue silk will do perfectly,” Kate said. 
“If I’m a little careful, it won’t hurt it any, and next 
winter it will be as good as ever for your teas and 
things, Mother, unless I’ve quite grown out of it. 
Anyway, travelling won’t spoil it.” 

When that was agreed upon it naturally followed 
that Katherine’s new spring hat must go with it; for 
it was a little navy blue silk hat, light and small and 
quite fascinating. 

“What you’ll ever do for a hat I don’t see,” Kate 
worried. 

“Never mind about me,” Katherine told her non¬ 
chalantly. “Here on this hill-top anything does so 
long as it gives a shade. And if ever I go down to 
Middletown I can wear your black tarn.” 

In the silk dress and hat and with her last spring’s 


THE BOY IN THE PICTURE FRAME 21 

blue cape with its orange silk lining Kate felt pre¬ 
pared to meet the eyes of even Elsie’s maid with 
equanimity. But imagine a girl of fifteen having a 
lady’s maid! 

Katherine thought that was just a glorified title 
for nurse, probably. But Kate protested that. A 
nurse for a girl of fifteen would be even more absurd 
than a maid. Well, Katherine was sure Aunt Kath¬ 
erine herself wouldn’t have a maid. She was a New 
Englander with all a true New Englander’s scorn of 
self-indulgence. But she probably did need some¬ 
one to keep Elsie mended and possibly to be a sort of 
chaperon for her, too; for Aunt Katherine, since her 
inheritance, had interested herself in social and chari¬ 
table work and was a very busy and even an im¬ 
portant woman. 

The two had endless conversations about Aunt 
Katherine and the adventures awaiting Kate. And 
Katherine talked more than she had ever talked be¬ 
fore about her own girlhood in Oakdale and the little 
orchard house where she had always lived and where 
she had been so happy. 

“If it isn’t rented you must go into it,” she told 
Kate. And then she described the rooms for her 
and all the important events that had happened in 
them. Aunt Katherine’s big newer house she hardly 
spoke of at all, for Kate herself was so soon to see it 
and know all its corners. 

All the planning and sewing and the long intimate 
conversations about Katherine’s girlhood and bits of 



THE VANISHING COMRADE 


family history that Kate had never heard before, kept 
her right up to the eve of departure occupied and 
excited. But as bedtime approached that night she 
began to be shaken by unexpected qualms. She had 
never before been away from her mother for even one 
night and they had always shared adventure. That 
now she was actually to go off by herself into an ad¬ 
venture of her own seemed unnatural and almost 
impossible. 

They were sitting on the bench out beside the big 
front doors, breathing in all the cool night air they 
could after the last hot and rather hurried day. 
Their faces were only palely visible to each other in 
the starlight. They had been silent for many min¬ 
utes when Kate said suddenly, and a little huskily, 
“ Mother, may I take the picture of the boy in the 
silver, flowery, dragony picture frame along to Oak¬ 
dale with me to-morrow? He’s a sort of talisman of 
mine.” 

Katherine was used to Kate’s abruptnesses and 
seldom showed surprise at anything anyway. But 
now she did show surprise, and the voice that an¬ 
swered Kate quivered with more than surprise. 

“The silvery, flowery, dragony picture frame? 
And the boy? What do you know of him, Kate?” 

“Why, he’s always been in the little top drawer of 
your desk. He’s always been there. I’ve never told 
you how much he meant to me. I’ve made it a 
secret. But I’ve known him just about as long as I 
can remember. I was an awfully little girl and had 


THE BOY IN THE PICTURE FRAME 23 

to climb on to a chair at first to see him. But I 
didn’t climb to look often. I saved it for—magic. 
When something dreadful happened, when I was 
punished or lessons were just too hateful, or you 
were late coming home, then I’d climb up and look 
at that boy in the frame for comfort. I think it 
would be very comfortable to have it with me along 
with your picture, Mother.” 

Katherine did not answer this for some time. She 
stayed as still as a graven image in the starlight. 
Finally, without moving at all, and in a voice as cool 
as starlight, she asked, “But why did you make it a 
secret? I don’t understand a bit. I didn’t know 
you even knew there was a little upper drawer. It’s 
almost hidden, and there is a secret about the catch. 
You have to work it just so.” 

“Yes, I know. And I can’t remember how or 
exactly when I discovered how to work it. At first, 
I do remember, it was just the frame I loved. It is 
a little wonder of a frame! The silver was so shining, 
and then the flowers and the fruit and the dragons 
are all so enchanting. I traced the dragons with my 
finger over and over and played they were alive. I 
thought it was too mysterious and lovely, all of it! 
It fascinated me in a way I could never tell you.” 

Katherine remained silent and Kate went on: 
“It was only when I was older I began to look at the 
picture and feel about that so strangely. I dis¬ 
covered what a wonderful face that boy has. I pre¬ 
tended he was the Sandman, the one who gave me my 


24 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

dreams at night. I always had such wonderful 
dreams, Mother! Remember?” 

Katherine did not answer, and Kate felt somehow 
impelled to go on. She was surprising herself in this 
account of past childish imaginings. She had never 
thought about it in words like this before. 

“He’d be just the person to have made those 
dreams for me. His face said he knew them all and 
thousands and thousands more! Then, when I got 
older I forgot about his being the Sandman, and any¬ 
way, my dreams stopped being wonderful and were 
just silly. Then I called him the ‘Understander.’ 
When I especially wanted an understander I’d open 
the secret drawer—I could do it without climbing on 
a chair by then—and there he was, looking up at me 
out of the dragons and the fruit and the flowers with 
understanding. 

“It was all just a notion, of course. Oh, am I 
talking nonsense, Mother? And was it nonsense to 
keep it so secret and all, always?” 

Katherine answered emphatically, “No. Not 
nonsense a bit. Only surprisingly—intuitive. For, 
Kate, he is just the sort of person who could have 
made up those wonderful dreams you used to have. 
And he was—and is still, I suppose—just a perfect 
understander. That is his quality. And it is 
startling to me, all you have said, for he has been a 
sort of a talisman to me, too, all these years. I’ve 
looked at him, at the picture, when / needed under¬ 
standing. And that is surprising in itself, for once, 


THE BOY IN THE PICTURE FRAME 25 

when he was just the age he is in that picture, the 
very week the picture was taken, I did him a wrong, 
a great wrong. We quarrelled. Since then I have 
never seen or heard from him.” 

Kate turned upon her mother with real exaspera¬ 
tion at this disclosure. “Oh, Mother! How could 
you! Another quarrel!” 

Katherine said nothing, and Kate instantly sof¬ 
tened. She felt that she had wounded her mother; 
and that was a dreadful thing to have happened on 
this their last night! It was in an apologizing tone 
and humbly that she asked then, “And may I take 
him with me to-morrow ?” 

“No, I think you’d better not. Let him stay just 
where he is, in the secret drawer. I may need his 
magic more than you while you are away.” 

So her mother wasn’t really hurt at all, or cross. 
She had spoken lightly, even airily. Kate sighed 
her relief. “I’m not asking you who the boy is, 
notice?” she spoke as lightly as her mother. “It 
might spoil the magic if I knew a human name for 
him. And I don’t believe you ever did him a wrong, 
either. For one thing, I don’t believe any one could 
do him a wrong. And you never did any one a wrong, 
anyway. I know it. You’re too dear and kind.— 
Look at those fireflies out there. Watch me catch 

i >> 

one! 

Kate suddenly jumped up and ran away into the 
summer evening. Katherine stayed still on the 
bench, watching her quick motions, her leaps and 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


36 

runs and turns. ‘‘It’s very like a dance,” she 
thought. “Only there should be music.” And she 
began humming softly. 

Kate slept that night with the twinges of pre¬ 
mature homesickness dulled by fatigue. And when 
morning came with the last bustle and scurry, any 
doubts that still lingered back in her mind were lost 
in the glamour of the adventure whose day had at 
last arrived. 

“Em going to take ‘The King of the Fairies’ with 
me to read on the train, Mother,” she called from her 
bedroom where she was putting the very last things 
into her bag. 

Katherine came to stand in the doorway, a partly 
spread piece of bread for a sandwich for Kate’s 
luncheon in her hand. “But you know ‘The King 
of the Fairies’ by heart,” she said. “Why not take 
the mystery story Sam and Lee gave you?” 

“I’ve packed that. I believe you want ‘The King 
of the Fairies’ yourself, just as you want the picture!” 
Kate said, teasingly. 

“Perhaps I do. It’s without exception the nicest 
thing that has happened to us this year, I think. 
Bring it back safely, for I shall certainly read it again 
before the summer’s through. Suppose we had been 
so foolish as to decide we couldn’t afford it that day 
we stumbled on it in the bookshop and were lost at 
the first paragraph!” 

Kate gasped at such a supposing. “I simply can’t 


THE BOY IN THE PICTURE FRAME 27 

imagine having missed it, never read it, can you? If 
that had happened, well, everything would be differ¬ 
ent. It has made so many things different, hasn’t it 
—reading it?” 

“Yes, for us both, I think. That’s why I am sure 
it is a great book, because it does make such a differ¬ 
ence to you, having read it or not. And I under¬ 
stand your wanting it with you to-day. Try to get 
Aunt Katherine to read it, if you can. She has 
enough literary appreciation to realize its beauty, and 
the rest of it, what it does to you—well, it wouldn’t 
hurt to have it do a little of that to her, too!” 

At that minute Sam and Lee whistled from the 
road, out at the back of the house, and in a second 
they were around and in at the big front door calling 
for Kate’s bag and anything that was to be carried. 
Katherine hurried to finish the sandwiches and tie up 
the lunch, Kate gave her hair a last boyish, brisk 
brushing, put on her hat, took her cape on her arm, 
and they were off, hurrying down to Broad Street and 
the bus there waiting the minute of starting in front 
of the Hotel. 

“Don’t let your father work Mother too hard on 
that old catalogue,” Kate besought the boys. “And 
do write me sometimes about everything, the tennis 
court and all.” 

Sam and Lee promised that they would take turns 
writing, much as they disliked it, and Kate should not 
lack for news. “And bring Elsie back with you to 
repay us,” they commanded. “The Hotel has let 


28 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

us borrow the roller, and the court will be in fine 
shape. We’ll be all practised up, too. You’d better 
do some practising yourself while you’re there. Elsie 
is probably a shark, anyway.” 

They reached the bus in good time and stood chat¬ 
tering a few minutes before the bus driver facetiously 
sang out, “All aboard!” Kate was the only pas¬ 
senger that morning. One quick hug and kiss passed 
between mother and daughter while Sam put in the 
suitcase and Lee dropped “The King of the Fairies” 
and the box of lunch in at the window. The busman 
himself had climbed into his seat and was sitting with 
his back to them. The Hotel piazza was deserted 
for the minute. There was no one besides themselves 
on the street. Sam kissed Kate on one cheek, and 
Lee kissed her on the other, quick, sound, affectionate, 
brotherly kisses. The driver blew his horn twice 
just to make sure no traveller was belated in the 
Hotel, started his engine, and the adventurer was off. 

Kate stood in the little vestibule, hanging to the 
door and looking back as long as she could see the 
three people she was leaving. Katherine was between 
the boys, hatless, in a blue smocked dress; she was 
waving and blowing kisses. She looked like a sister to 
the boys, and not even an older sister from the dis¬ 
tance of the speeding bus. Then the vehicle jerked 
around a corner and Kate sat down, faced about the 
way they were going, and contemplated her own im¬ 
mediate future. 

In school she had often sat watching the big clock 


THE BOY IN THE PICTURE FRAME 29 

over the blackboard in the front of the room; just 
before the minute hand reached the hour it had a way 
of suddenly jerking itself ahead with a little click. 
That was what had happened on the instant of part¬ 
ing from her mother—time, somehow, or at least her 
place in time, had jerked suddenly and unexpectedly 
ahead. Now the hour must be striking, she reflected 
whimsically, and she was at the beginning of a new 
one. So much the better. She expected it to be a 
wholly fascinating hour, and Elsie the unknown 
comrade was waiting in it. 


CHAPTER III 


THE COMRADE DOES NOT APPEAR 


.THOUGH Kate kept her book “The King of 



^ the Fairies” on her lap in bus and trains, she 
did not look into its pages at all. Still it had its 
meaning and its use on the journey. It was some¬ 
thing well known and dearly loved going with her into 
strangeness and uncertainty. Its purple cloth bind¬ 
ing spoke to her through the tail of her eye even when 
she was most busy taking in the fleeting landscape. 
One would have thought her a seasoned traveller and 
a very well-poised person if he had seen her sitting 
so still, her hands lightly touching the closed book, 
her gaze missing little of interest in country and town 
as the train rushed along. But in reality her mind 
was as busy as the spinning wheels, and her thoughts 
ranged everywhere from the commonplace to the 
inspired; and as for her emotions, they were in a whir. 

But the thought that recurred over and over and 
from which she never entirely escaped during the 
whole five hours of travel was this: was any one else 
in the world so happy and elated as she? People she 
saw looking from windows, people working in fac¬ 
tories, people working in meadows, people walking on 
streets—how dull and uneventful their present hour 


30 


THE COMRADE DOES NOT APPEAR 31 

was compared to her present hour! And the Hart 
boys back at home! How could they bear the com¬ 
monplaceness of going on in the same spot all sum¬ 
mer, doing the same things, and seeing the same 
people! And only one week ago she herself had been 
more than contented, happily expectant even, when 
she was facing just such a summer! 

Of course, she wondered about Elsie a lot. In 
fact, she scarcely thought of Great Aunt Katherine 
at all. Would Elsie meet her at the South Station 
in Boston? Great Aunt Katherine’s letter had said 
Elsie’s maid would meet her. But surely Elsie her¬ 
self would be there, too. Kate, for a minute, imagined 
herself in Elsie’s place, eagerly waiting among the 
crowds at the great terminal for the appearance of the 
new friend, wondering and speculating about her, 
just as Kate herself was wondering and speculating 
about Elsie. 

The journey seemed very short. Kate could not 
believe they were actually in Boston until the con¬ 
ductor coming through assured her that in less than 
two minutes they would be in. But for Kate the 
next two minutes seemed longer than all the rest 
of the journey put together. She sat on the edge of 
the seat, one hand grasping the handle of her suitcase, 
the other clutching “The King of the Fairies.” 
And even in her tense excitement the long-drawn- 
outness of those two minutes made her think about 
the King of the Fairies and what he had taught, or 
rather shown, the girl and boy in the book about 


32 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

time —what a mysterious thing it was, quite man¬ 
made and not real. She could well believe it now. 
However, even that two minutes came to an end, as 
such eternities will. 

At the train steps there were “red caps” galore 
clamouring for baggage to carry, and a pushing crowd 
of passengers who had poured down from the long 
line of coaches. Kate shook her head as a matter 
of course to the porters, and marched along, her 
rather heavy leather bag, marked with the initials 
K. M. in white chalk, in one hand, the book and her 
purse—not a very good balance—in the other. No 
one could come out into the train shed to meet you, 
Kate remembered now from the two or three times 
she had been in that station with her mother. Well, 
Elsie would be up at the entrance, standing on tip¬ 
toes, looking off over heads until their eyes met. 
How should they know each other? No special 
arrangement had been made to insure Kate’s being 
recognized. But Katherine had said, “Don’t worry. 
Aunt Katherine’s not one to bungle anything. She 
or Elsie or the maid, probably all three, will spot you 
at once. And if they don’t, all you have to do is to 
find a telephone booth and call up the Oakdale 
house.” And now, coming up through the shed, 
straining her eyes toward the gate, Kate had not the 
slightest doubt that the minute her eyes met Elsie’s 
eyes they would know each other. She had lived 
in anticipation of this minute now so steadily for so 
long that she would feel confident of picking Elsie 


THE COMRADE DOES NOT APPEAR 33 

out in a crowd of a thousand girls all of the same 
age. 

But she was getting near the gate and still she had 
seen no one that might be Elsie. Then, walking on 
tiptoes for a second, a difficult feat when you are as 
loaded down as she was, she did see a girl standing a 
little way back from the gate and watching the pas¬ 
sengers with impatient eagerness as they came 
through. For an instant the eyes of the two girls 
met. Kate went suddenly, unexpectedly shy at that 
encounter. But instantly an inner Kate squared her 
shoulders, in a way the inner Kate had, and forbade 
the outer Kate to tremble. And when Kate, in a 
flash, had restored herself to herself, she knew that 
the girl waiting there was certainly not Elsie; she was 
too utterly different from anything she had imagined 
about her. There! She was right. The girl had 
greeted the woman just ahead of Kate and they 
hurried off together talking volubly. Kate drew a 
relieved sigh. She never could have liked that over¬ 
dressed girl as well as she knew she was going to like 
Elsie. They would never have become chums and 
comrades. 

But now she herself was outside the gate. She 
suddenly realized that her suitcase was very heavy 
and put it down. Simultaneously she looked around 
confidently for a friendly, welcoming face, for the eyes 
of the new comrade. There was no such face, no 
such eyes. But she did become aware of a youngish 
woman, in a very smart gray tailored suit and Paris- 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


34 

ian looking black hat with a gray wing, bearing di¬ 
rectly down upon her. She was certainly too young 
to be Great Aunt Katherine; but it was hard to be¬ 
lieve that such smartness and apparent distinction 
could belong to a maid. 

“Miss Marshall?” 

“Yes, I’m Kate Marshall. And you?” 

“Bertha, Miss Elsie’s maid.” She turned to¬ 
ward a middle-aged round little Irishman in brown 
livery. “Timothy,” she said, “it’s her.” Alas, for 
the distinction of the black toque! 

Timothy stepped briskly forward and picked up 
Kate’s suitcase, touching his cap, but giving her a 
quick, keenly interested glance at the same time. 
“Your trunk checks, if you please, Miss?” he said, 
holding out his free hand for them. 

“Why, there isn’t a trunk. The suitcase is all.” 

“Didn’t the trunk catch this train?” Bertha 
asked, and added in a commiserating tone, “Service 
is wretched—Miss Frazier says so.” 

“I didn’t have any trunk at all. The suitcase 
holds everything.” 

Bertha’s ejaculation of surprise was suddenly 
turned into a flow of tactful words. “All the better, 
all the better. That makes things very simple, very 
simple. We’ve only to go out to the automobile 
then, and we’ll be in Oakdale in no time.” 

Little round Timothy led the way with the bag and 
book, Kate followed him, and Bertha came behind 
her. She was not used to walking in processions like 


THE COMRADE DOES NOT APPEAR 35 

this, and she felt distinctly strange and lonely. But 
the thought that Elsie might be waiting in the car 
braced her up. Even so she couldn’t imagine why 
Elsie hadn’t come in and been the first to greet her 
at the gate. If she were Elsie she would never sit 
calmly waiting out in the car. 

But the car was empty. It was a very handsome, 
big, luxurious affair, painted a light glossy brown, the 
very shade of Timothy’s uniform. It had a long, 
low body, much shining nickel plate, windshields be¬ 
fore the back seat as well as the front, and Great 
Aunt Katherine Frazier’s monogram in silver on the 
door. 

Timothy held back the monogrammed door while 
Kate stepped in. Then he slid into the driver’s seat, 
leaving Bertha to follow him. So there was Kate 
bobbing around on the wide back seat that was richly 
though slipperily upholstered in smooth leather. 
Her baggage was in front with the servants. She 
had not even the cherished book to sustain her. She 
wondered, a little whimsically, that they had let her 
carry her purse. 

Where was Elsie ? Kate gave herself up to specu¬ 
lation as they crawled through the crowded city 
streets. They crawled, but it was smooth and beau¬ 
tiful crawling, for Timothy was an artist among chauf¬ 
feurs. Kate looked all around her interestedly and 
happily in spite of the sharpness of her disappoint¬ 
ment at Elsie’s absence. But although it was excit¬ 
ing and stimulating to her to be moving through the 


36 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

streets of the big city she realized the heat uncomfort¬ 
ably and, used to her high hill air, was over-conscious 
of the unsavoury odours that met her on every side. 
She unbuttoned and threw back her cape and re¬ 
sisted just in time an impulse to lift her hat from her 
head by the crown, the way a boy does, and toss it 
into a corner of the seat so that her head might be a 
little cooler. But another inclination she did not 
resist in time. She leaned forward and spoke to 
Bertha over the windshield: “Elsie, Miss Elsie ? 
couldn’t she come? Is she well?” she asked. 

What an idiotic question! Why was she always 
saying things so abruptly, things she hardly meant 
to say! Bertha turned her smooth, distinguished- 
looking profile. “She is very well. She will be at 
dinner.” 

Now they were out of the city and they gained 
speed; but they gained almost without Kate’s 
noticing, for the car was so luxurious and Timothy 
was such an artist. But when she observed how the 
trees and fences and houses were beginning to rush 
by she braced her feet against the nickel footrail and 
laid her arm along the padded armrest. She leaned 
back, relaxed. She began to feel that she quite be¬ 
longed in the car, as though such conveniences had 
always been at her service, almost as though private 
chauffeurs and ladies’ maids were an everyday 
matter. Or was she dramatizing herself? Anyway, 
it was fun and very, very new. She hoped there 
would be time to write her mother all about it to- 


THE COMRADE DOES NOT APPEAR 37 

night. She profoundly wished the Hart boys could 
see her! 

But Bertha had turned her smooth profile again. 
“We are just entering Oakdale,” she informed her, 
speaking impersonally, so decorously that it might 
have been to the air. And instantly Kate’s com¬ 
posure and assurance were shivered, her relaxed 
muscles tensed themselves, her mind became just one 
big question mark. 

Oakdale was a charming suburb. Most of the 
houses seemed to have lawns and gardens that justi¬ 
fied the name of “grounds,” and wealth spoke on 
every side, but in a tone of good taste and often even 
beauty. Elms and maples lined the street down 
which the adventurer’s chariot was bowling. 

Oh, which house, which house was Great Aunt 
Katherine’s? Would Elsie be standing in the door¬ 
way? Would Kate know the house by that? Or 
would she be at a window, or keeping a watch for 
them on some garden wall? 

They suddenly swerved from the main residential 
street and rolled down a delightful lane bordered by 
older, more mellowed houses. At the very end of the 
lane, before a large white house with green blinds, the 
car came to a stop. What a gracious, dignified house 
it was, and every bit as imposing and mansionlike as 
Kate’s mother had described it. There were balconies 
gay with plants and hanging vines, tall windows, and 
an absence of anything ambiguous or superfluous. 
The wide front door, with its shining brass knocker 


0 



THE VANISHING COMRADE 


38 

and rows of potted plants at either side, was ap¬ 
proached by a dozen or so wide, shallow stone stairs 
bordered by tall blue larkspur and a golden bell¬ 
shaped flower for which Kate did not know the 
name. The steps were almost upon the lane, but 
Kate knew that there were extensive “grounds” at 
the back, and somewhere there the little orchard 
house. 

No Elsie stood at the top of those stone steps or 
came running around the house from the gardens 
at the sound of the stopping car. Not even Aunt 
Katherine made an appearance. Timothy held open 
the automobile door, Bertha took the suitcase and 
book, and Kate, with a “Thank you,” to Timothy, 
started off on the last stage of her journey, that of 
the climb of the stone steps to her aunt’s front door. 
Bertha followed close behind. Kate wondered 
whether she should ring the bell, or wait and let 
Bertha ring it for her. Or would Bertha open the 
door and they go in without ringing? Oh, dear! 
Why hadn’t she asked her mother more explicitly 
about correct usage when there is a lady’s maid at 
your heels? But then, perhaps Mother couldn’t 
have helped her much, for certainly Mother had 
never been so attended. And then the inner Kate 
asserted herself. “Don’t be a silly,” it said. “How 
can it matter which of you rings the doorbell?—and 
certainly you’re not going to go in without ringing. 
Bertha’s hands are too full either to ring the bell or 
open the door. Ring.” 


THE COMRADE DOES NOT APPEAR 39 

But before her finger had time to reach the button, 
the door swung open before her as though by magic 
and Kate stepped in. A maid had opened the door 
and now stood half-concealed behind it with her face 
properly vacant. Kate, when she discovered her, 
gave her a nod and a faint “Thank you. ,, Then she 
stood still in the hall, looking about for her aunt. 
She had almost given up Elsie for the present; but 
surely her aunt would come now from some part of 
the house hurrying to greet her with hospitality and 
show her her room. 

But Bertha had no such idea. She did not look 
about as though expecting any one. “I will lead the 
way/’ she offered, “if you please. There are a good 
many turns.” And still carrying Kate’s suitcase she 
walked off up the narrow strip of thick gray velvety 
material that carpeted the polished stairs. Kate fol¬ 
lowed. It was a very complicated house, she decided, 
as they went through doors, down unexpected pas¬ 
sages, up steps, and finally around a sharp turn, around 
two turns, up two steps, and Bertha threw open a 
door. There Bertha stood back for Kate to pass in 
ahead of her. 

The bedroom that had been assigned to her was 
exquisitely lovely. It was a little room of beautiful 
proportions facing the “grounds.” So much care 
had been spent on its decorations and furnishings 
that one never thought of all the money that had 
been spent with the care. Its three long windows, 
their sills almost on the floor, opened out on to a 


4 o THE VANISHING COMRADE 

flowery balcony hung above the garden. The win¬ 
dows were wide open now because of the heat and 
stood back against the walls like doors. The finest 
of spiderweb lace was gathered against the panes, 
and at their sides hung opal-coloured curtains of very 
soft silk. The same colour, in heavier silk, was used 
in the spread for the narrow ivory bed, with its 
painted crimson ramblers at footboard and top. 
There was a low reading table by the bed and in the 
centre of it a little crystal lamp with an opal shade. 
Across from the bed and table stood an ivory dressing 
table reflecting the balcony’s brilliant plants in its 
three hinged mirrors. An ivory-coloured chair with 
a low back and three legs was placed before the dress¬ 
ing table. On one creamy wall hung LePage’s “Joan 
of Arc,” and on the opposite wall a painting of a little 
girl with streaming hair leaping across a bright flower 
bed. Through a door with long crystal mirrors 
panelled into either side Kate glimpsed a white 
bathroom with a huge porcelain tub with shining 
taps and a rack hung thick with wide, creamy 
towels. 

“What a heavenly room!” she exclaimed, enrap¬ 
tured. “Is it mine?” 

“Yes, this is your bedroom.” Bertha spoke al¬ 
most deprecatingly of it. “But there is a sitting- 
room just across the hall. It is Miss Elsie’s, but while 
you are here Miss Frazier says you are to share it. 
That is much more comfortable.” 
i Kate went directly to a window, hoping to find 


THE COMRADE DOES NOT APPEAR 41 

the orchard house in its view. She was not disap¬ 
pointed. Beyond lawns and flower gardens there was 
the old orchard with its gnarled, twisted trees, and 
back among the trees the outlines of a little gray 
house. Kate was quite moved by this her first 
glimpse of her mother’s home. 

Bertha came up behind, and now was engaged in 
unbuttoning her cape for her and taking off her hat. 
But Kate was almost unconscious of these ministra¬ 
tions. She was unconscious, too, when Bertha turned 
to unpacking her bag. 

“There won’t be time for you to change to-night, 
Miss Frazier said,” Bertha was informing her. “So 
we’ll just wash you up a bit and brush your hair. 
Miss Frazier said you were to go down directly, and 
there’s the first gong anyway.” 

A musical note was sounding through the house. 

Reluctantly, Kate turned from the window. 
Bertha followed her into the bathroom, filled the 
bowl for her with water, and then stood at hand with 
soap and a towel. For one wild instant Kate won¬ 
dered whether Bertha meant to wash her face for her! 
She had a definite feeling of relief when she put the 
soap and the towel down at the side of the bowl and 
left her alone. Quickly and efficiently Kate re¬ 
moved the grime of travel. When she went back 
into her room Bertha was standing by the dressing 
table, brush in hand. 

Kate sat down on the three-legged chair. She 
thought she had never looked into clearer mirrors 


42 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

than the three hinged ones before her. “ Please, I 
can brush my own hair, it’s so short. I would 
rather.” Just a few quick strokes, a poke or two, and 
the bobbed hair with the wing brushed across the fore¬ 
head was perfectly tidy and crisp. 

“Eli take you to the top of the stairs,” Bertha 
offered. “You mayn't have noticed the way very 
carefully as we came along.” 

“No, I am not sure I could find it. But tell me 
first, where does that door, the other door, in the 
bathroom go?” 

“Oh, that’s Miss Elsie’s door.” 

“Miss Elsie’s room! So near! Oh, do you sup¬ 
pose she’s in there?” 

“Why, I don’t know. I dressed her for dinner be¬ 
fore starting to town for you. She’s more probably 
downstairs. Dinner is served three minutes after 
that first gong.” 

Kate gave one more glance toward the door that 
now had become of so much interest to her, before 
following Bertha. She was glad that she and Elsie 
were to sleep so near each other. Why, it was a suite 
of rooms they had. There was something splendid 
about occupying a suite of rooms. And there was 
even a sitting-room for them across the hall. How 
jolly it was and how independent! But where was 
Elsie ? 

Kate thanked Bertha when she had been guided to 
the top of the staircase. “Am I just to go down?” 
she asked, a little timidly. 


THE COMRADE DOES NOT APPEAR 43 

“Why, yes. Miss Frazier will be in the drawing¬ 
room. It’s at the left. You can’t miss it.” 

Bertha faded discreetly back as she spoke, into the 
shadows of the upper hall, leaving Kate suddenly to 
her own resources. But after an instant’s hesitation, 
during which the inner indomitable Kate was sum¬ 
moned up, she passed quietly and with dignity down 
the gray velvet stair carpet. 



CHAPTER IV 


LITTLE ORCHARD HOUSE, BEWARE! 

r jpHE drawing-room extended for almost half the 
length of the big house. It was the largest room 
that Kate had ever seen or imagined outside of a 
castle. Just at first she could not discover her aunt 
in it. But soon her glance found her sitting down at 
the farthest end near one of the French doors that 
stood wide open into the garden. Her head was 
turned away, but the shape and pose of that head 
and the way she sat in her chair, with a book but not 
reading, reminded Kate sharply and poignantly of 
her mother. Why hadn’t Katherine warned her 
that they were so much alike? 

She went toward her softly because of her shyness, 
her feet hardly making a sound on the Persian rugs, 
past the tables and divans and lamps. It was seven 
o’clock of a July evening now, and the shadows lent 
a lovely charm to the big room that was peculiarly 
charming even in broadest daylight. Kate felt as 
she went toward her aunt that she was walking in a 
dream. And it was a very nice dream, too, for that 
glimpse of the likeness of her aunt to her mother had 
reassured her completely. All her previous ideas 
of her aunt were swept away, and the anticipations 


ORCHARD HOUSE, BEWARE! 45 

of this visit, which for a little had been dampened, 
now returned with fresh life. 

Miss Frazier turned as Kate came near. Hastily 
she put her book, still open as Kate’s mother would 
have, on a table at her hand and rose. She kissed 
Kate with warmth and dignity and then held her off*, 
the tips of her fingers on her shoulders. 

“You’re not one bit like your mother,” she af¬ 
firmed. “Not one least bit.” 

“Don’t accuse me,” Kate said, laughing. “I 
would have been if I could, of course. But wouldn’t 
it have been rather confusing to have had three of us 
so much alike? The names are confusing enough.” 

If someone could have told Kate an hour—no, two 
minutes—ago that on first meeting her aunt she 
would speak so easily, so without self-consciousness, 
she would not have believed. She had expected to 
be constrained, awkward. But then she had never 
expected Aunt Katherine to be so agreeable as she 
apparently was. 

Aunt Katherine was smiling quite brilliantly. 
Kate had instantly touched and pleased her. “Does 
it really seem to you that I am anything like your 
mother?” 

Kate nodded. But even as she nodded, she saw 
the difference suddenly. Aunt Katherine was taller, 
of course; but that was not it. Her firm, squarish 
chin was not neutralized by melting gray eyes as 
Katherine’s was. Aunt Katherine’s eyes were dark 
and their expression echoed the strong chin; it was a 


46 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

sure expression, penetrating and aboveall intellectual. 
And the lines about the mouth and eyes were lines 
that Katherine would never have at any age. They 
were lines of loneliness and trouble. 

Even as Kate was thinking all this—lightning- 
quick thinking it was, of course—she saw the lines 
deepen and the mouth and eyes harden perceptibly. 
“It is past dinner time. Didn’t Elsie come down 
with you?” The hardening was not for Kate’s 
tardiness; it was for Elsie’s. 

“I haven’t seen her. I don’t believe she was in her 
room or she would have heard me.” 

“Haven’t seen Elsie? That is strange! She must 
be in the orchard or somewhere, and not realize the 
time.” 

Aunt Katherine moved to the garden door, her 
hand still on Kate’s shoulder. “There she comes 
now, from the orchard.” 

They stepped over the sill and waited for Elsie on 
the stone flags outside. She was floating through the 
gardens directly from the orchard. Floating is a 
better word for it than hurrying because she was such 
a light and airy creature and above all so graceful. 
Her approach was almost in the nature of a dance. 
She was dressed in white, a narrow belt of peri¬ 
winkle blue at the low waistline. 

It was evident when she came nearer that she had 
not seen the two waiting for her. Her eyes were 
dropped a little and she was smiling! There was a 
radiance of happiness about her. At first, in this 


ORCHARD HOUSE, BEWARE! 47 

impression of her, happiness was even more obvious 
than prettiness. But she was pretty, too, quite en- 
chantingly pretty. Kate, who was not pretty her¬ 
self, loved it all the more in others. Her appreciation 
always leapt to meet it. 

Elsie was slim, with a fairy grace of face and figure. 
Her hair, a net of sunlight even now in the growing 
dusk, was tied at her neck, and its curls straying on 
her shoulders and at her cheeks shone like fairy gold. 
Her face was delicately moulded and faintly tinted. 
It was her chin that struck Kate most. It was an 
elfin, whimsically pointed chin. In fact, she was such 
an exquisite creature that Kate, standing there wait¬ 
ing for the instant when she should look up and their 
eyes meet, felt as though her own sturdy young body 
belonged to another world. 

But Elsie was so absorbed in her happiness that 
she did not raise her eyes until she was almost 
upon them. It was Aunt Katherine’s voice that re¬ 
called her, and she stopped short a few feet from 
where they were standing. “Well, Elsie?” 

Then at last the eyes of the destined comrades 
met! Kate was smiling, the corners of her mouth 
uptilted little wings. Her whole face spoke her de¬ 
light in Elsie’s extraordinary prettiness and her 
own expectation of comradeship. No one could have 
missed what her look meant. But Elsie’s response 
was a strange one. Instantly the elfin smile van¬ 
ished, the elfin chin became set, the pretty face and 
violet eyes hardened. But she took the few re- 


48 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

maining steps forward and gave Kate her hand. 
In a correctly polite but delicately cool way she said, 
“How do you do?” 

Aunt Katherine showed some chagrin at that tone. 
“This is your cousin, Elsie,” she said. “You are not 
going to stand on any formality with a cousin who 
has come for the express purpose of being cousinly. 
Dinner was announced some minutes ago. Let us go 
in.” 

But what had happened to Kate? She hardly 
knew herself. She had turned sick, physically sick 
and faint, when Elsie had looked at her so coolly and 
indifferently. No one had ever treated her so in all 
her life before. She had had spats, of course, with 
her contemporaries, now and then. There had been 
days when either Sam or Lee or some girl in school 
refused to speak to her. There had been angry 
glances, sharp words. But she had never been 
treated like this. Nothing before had ever turned 
her sick. 

As they moved down the long drawing-room and 
across the hall to the dining-room Kate asked herself 
desperately whether she had imagined it all. Could 
she have heard Elsie’s voice aright? Was the cool, 
hard glance from Elsie’s eyes insultingly indifferent? 
How could it be? Why should it be? What had 
she done? She had done just nothing at all. There 
was no reason in the world for Elsie to hate or despise 
her. And so, fortified by her reason and by the wise 
inner Kate that never wholly forsook her, Kate 


ORCHARD HOUSE, BEWARE! 49 

decided before they reached the dining-room that 
it had been imagination—partly, anyway. Elsie 
might not have liked her looks at first, but she had 
no reason to hate her. 

Even so, she did not have the courage to look di¬ 
rectly at Elsie when they were finally seated at the 
table. They were in high-backed carved Italian 
chairs at a narrow, long, black, much-oiled table. In 
the centre of the table two marvellously beautiful 
water lilies floated in an enormous shallow jade 
bowl. The napkin that Kate half unfolded in 
her lap was monogrammed damask and very luxu¬ 
rious to her fingers’ touch. The dinner was simple, 
as simple as the dinners to which Kate was ac¬ 
customed at home, but it was served with such 
dignity by a lacy-capped and aproned waitress that 
before they were finished with the prune-whip dessert 
Kate felt they had banqueted. 

Very early in the meal Kate learned that she need 
not avoid looking directly at Elsie, for Elsie’s own 
eyes were averted. Apparently she was languidly 
interested in the portraits on the opposite wall. At 
any rate, her gaze was always just a little above 
Kate’s head or to the right or left of her shoulder. 
When Aunt Katherine spoke to her she looked at her 
as she replied. But aside from those polite and 
clearly spoken answers, she contributed nothing to 
the conversation. 

In contrast to Elsie Aunt Katherine was giving 
her whole mind to being entertaining and making 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


5o 

Kate feel at home. She drew her out about the life 
in Ashland, the barn that had so ingeniously been 
turned into a house, Kate’s school in Middletown, 
the Hart boys, their mother and father, the life at 
Ashland College, everything that concerned Kather¬ 
ine and Kate. Although Kate hardly realized it, 
during the course of that first meal she had given 
her aunt a pretty complete picture of her back¬ 
ground, and incidentally of herself. 

Just as the finger bowls were brought in Aunt 
Katherine said, “The little orchard house beyond the 
garden was your Grandfather Frazier’s, you know, 
Kate. You will want to explore it, I imagine. 
To-morrow at breakfast I shall give you the key.” 

Kate was delighted. “Oh, may I go into it? 
Mother wasn’t at all sure it wouldn’t be rented. 
She wanted me to see it if I possibly could, and tell 
her all about it.” 

“Of course it’s not rented. It is too much part 
of my grounds, altogether too connected with every¬ 
thing here. A family there would be intolerable. 
And besides, I consider that the house belongs to 
your mother. It is only waiting for her.” 

But now the eyes of the two girls did meet for the 
second time. Kate gasped. Fear and anger spoke 
in Elsie’s direct stare. And Kate was sure she was 
not imagining now—all the delicate tint had been 
swept from Elsie’s face. She was pale. 

They got up at that minute and followed Aunt 
Katherine from the dining-room. Elsie turned her 


ORCHARD HOUSE, BEWARE! 51 

head away as they walked. But Kate was too 
curious now to be definitely unhappy. She wanted 
only to know the reason of Elsie’s behaviour. And 
she surprised herself more than a little by finding 
herself drawn to the sulky, ungracious, frightened 
girl. Nothing was at all the way she had dreamed 
it and expected it, it is true. But in some ways it 
was better. Elsie was more of a person than her 
dreams had made her, and friendship with her, if 
only they ever did become friends, might be quite 
wonderful. Kate did not think this out. It was 
just her feeling. 

In the drawing-room Aunt Katherine sat down 
at her reading table and picked up her book. “It 
is after eight,” she told the girls, “and I’m sure 
Kate should go to bed early. But you may walk 
in the garden together a little first.” 

Now Kate glimpsed the Aunt Katherine of tra¬ 
dition. Neither she nor Elsie had any thought but 
to obey the command. They went out together to 
walk in the garden. “Just like that,” Kate said 
to herself, inwardly smiling. But there was no 
rebellion in her thought. She distinctly liked Aunt 
Katherine and was ready to take commands from her. 
And this command was particularly welcome. Now 
Elsie must unbend! Now they must find each other. 

For a minute they walked in silence and then 
Kate said, “Let’s go into the apple orchard. I want 
to see my mother’s house nearer. Do you know I 
can hardly wait until morning when I shall see it 


52 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

inside, too. Mother has told me so much about 
it!” 

“It isn’t your mother’s house,” Elsie answered 
quite unexpectedly. “It’s Aunt Katherine’s. And 
there’s nothing to see in the dark. Just a little old 
gray house with weeds in the front walk. Even the 
road to it is all grown over with grass now, for no 
one goes there ever.” 

“I want to see it all the same. It’s where my 
mother and my grandmother and my grandfather 
lived. I’m going whether you come or not.” 

“Oh, all right,” Elsie acquiesced, sulkily. “But 
a lot you’ll see in the dark.” 

It was just as Elsie had said. It was a little old 
gray house set down in the centre of the apple or¬ 
chard with no road leading to it. And weeds stood 
high in the gravel front walk. 

“Why, it’s a fairy house by starlight!” Kate ex¬ 
claimed, quite forgetting Elsie’s mood in her own. 

Elsie spoke in a rather high voice then, a voice 
that carried all through the orchard: “If it is a fairy 
house,” she called, “Fairies, beware! Orchard 
house, beware! If there are fairies in the house put 
out all lights, hurry away. Aunt Katherine’s nieces 
are here and Aunt Katherine doesn’t want the house 
occupied.” 

Kate was surprised but quickly pleased, too. Elsie 
had entered into a game whole-heartedly. Perhaps 
she was just an ordinary girl, after all! Perhaps she 
had been imagining absurd things about her. This 


ORCHARD HOUSE, BEWARE! 53 

Elsie calling out into the starry dimness, warning 
the little house of their approach, was Elsie as 
she should be, with her fairy-gold curls and elfin 
chin. 

Kate involuntarily drew nearer to her. And then 
she raised her voice and called in her turn to the 
little orchard house. “But Aunt Katherine’s not 
here,” she called. “She is deep in a deep book. 
So light all your lights, if you wish, look out of your 
windows, open your doors. Little enchanted house, 
wake up!” 

She was laughing as she finished and holding Elsie’s 
hand, for she was quite carried away by her own 
fancy. This was the kind of nonsense she loved, and 
the little house did seem alive and awake. Sh zfelt 
it responding there in its dim starlight! 

Elsie allowed her hand to be held. But she cried, 
softly, but still in a carrying voice, “No, no, no. 
Don’t look out! Don’t wake up. There are two of 
us here. Two. Notone!” 

And then the girls stood silent. The game had 
become so real that Kate would not have been at all 
astonished to see fairy lights at the windows, to hear 
windows opening and fairy laughter. But she heard 
nothing except the crickets in the uncut grass and 
Elsie’s hurried breathing. 

“Come,” she whispered. “Let’s go all around the 
house”—and off she started, still holding Elsie’s 
hand. Elsie could only go, too. And at the back 
of the house, the side that was in view only of the 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


54 

orchard and vacant fields beyond, Kate noticed two 
windows wide open in the second story. 

“Does Aunt Katherine let those windows stay open 
like that ?” she asked, curiously. “Those are the win¬ 
dows in the study. I know from Mother’s telling. 
Suppose it should rain to-night? It must be an 
oversight. Let’s go back and get the key from 
Aunt Katherine now to-night and close them for 
her. Won’t it be fun to go in by starlight, just we 
two alone!” 

Elsie shook her head violently and pulled her hand 
away at the same time. There was a break in her 
voice almost as though she were in danger of bursting 
into tears. 

“You needn’t go being a busybody the very first 
hour you are here,” she exclaimed. “I guess Aunt 
doesn’t need your advice about such things. Come 
away. Come out of the orchard.” 

Kate followed her, nonplussed, at sea. “What 
is the matter?” she demanded. “What are you 
afraid of, Elsie Frazier?” Then, stopping suddenly, 
“What was that? Listen!” Surely a door had 
closed softly up there in the room with the windows 
open! 

“What was what ?” 

“Didn’t you hear?” 

“No, of course I didn’t hear anything.” 

“A door closed up there.” 

“Nonsense! How could a door close up there?” 

“Well, it did. I heard it just as plain. But per- 


ORCHARD HOUSE, BEWARE! 55 

haps it was a breeze that closed it. Only I don't feel 
any breeze." 

“It must have been a breeze." 

“Well, it was a careful breeze. It shut the door 
ever so gently. Quite as though a door knob was 
turned. Oh, Elsie, do you suppose it is fairies— 
or something weird?" 

“I don't suppose anything. And Aunt Katherine 
will be expecting us in. Come." 

As they went Kate turned to look back several 
times at the orchard house. But no fairy lights 
twinkled for her in the windows, no doors or windows 
opened, no fairy stood on the doorstone beckoning 
her back. It was just a little old gray house in an 
orchard. But even so Kate felt it alive, awake 
somehow. Elsie could not spoil her feeling about it. 

Just outside the lighted drawing-room Elsie turned 
about and faced Kate. She was not quite so tall 
and she was slighter. But her whole body was 
drawn up with extraordinary force and her face, in 
spite of its delicate elfin quality, was determined. 

“Kate Marshall," she said in a quiet tone, “you're 
not to say one word to Aunt Katherine about those 
windows. Not one single word! And what's more, 
you're not to use the key that she will give you to¬ 
morrow. It's not your mother's house any more. 
You'll only be disappointed. There's nothing of 
her in there at all. I shall hate you and hate you 
and HATE you if you use that key. You've got to 
promise me." 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


56 

Kate did not flinch before this unexpected attack. 
But she was amazed. “Of course I sha’n’t promise 
you,” she contradicted. “You’re a silly to think 
you can make me. What’s the matter with you, 
anyway ? ” 

Elsie still looked at her, but her firmness, her 
determination melted. Her lips trembled. Unshed 
tears glistened in her eyes. When she spoke her 
tone was changed completely. “Please, please,” 
she besought Kate. “You are just a girl even if you 
are—well, even if you are Kate Marshall. Please 
promise me that you’ll wait a week before exploring 
the orchard house. After that I won’t care. Go 
and live in it, if you like. But just for a week, 
promise me.” 

“No, I won’t promise.” But Kate was softening. 
“I won’t promise. But perhaps, since you care so 
much, I won’t go in to-morrow or the next day. Per¬ 
haps I’ll stay away a week. Only I think you’ll have 
to tell me why .” 

But Elsie shook her head. “I can’t tell you why. 
You’ll know for yourself within a few days. You’ve 
promised ?” 

“I have not promised. And I think you ought 
to explain to me. Are you sure you won’t? I’m a 
pretty good person at keeping a secret. If I knew, 
I might promise.” 

Elsie shook her head. Kate saw the tears still 
glistening in her eyes. She felt brutal to have made 
a fairy cry! 


ORCHARD HOUSE, BEWARE! 57 

“Don’t, don’t cry,” she begged softly. “I won’t 
use the key to-morrow, anyway. I promise you 
that. And I’ll tell you before I do use it. I don’t 
see why I shouldn’t put it off for a week if you care 
so much. I’m not a pig.” 

“And you won’t even prowl around the orchard 
house during that week?” 

Kate, instantly forgetting her momentary pity, 
grew hot. “I never prowl. What a nasty word!” 

“You prowled to-night.” 

“I didn’t. We were playing a game with the 
house. I’m going in.” 

With high-held head, flaming cheeks, and bright 
eyes Kate stepped into the drawing-room. Elsie 
was at her side, cool, calm, no trace of recent tears. 
In spite of Kate’s flash of real anger Elsie was well 
satisfied wflth the outcome of their “walk in the 
garden.” For she felt that Kate would be one to 
keep her word. Elsie might breathe freely, for a 
day more at any rate, and not live in hourly terror of 
the discovery of her secret, and the secret of the 
orchard house. 

Aunt Katherine had been watching them through 
the glass of the long door. She smiled, apparently 
well pleased, as they came in now. She said, “I am 
glad that you are getting acquainted. You should 
have a very nice month together, you two. Kate 
must be tired, and I advise you both to go right to 
bed. Breakfast is at quarter to eight.” 

“She was watching us while we talked at the 


58 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

door,” Elsie whispered as they went up the stairs. 
“She thought we couldn’t leave off talking. She 
imagines we’re bosom friends already.” 

But Kate walked on up with a set face. She did 
not trouble to answer. 


CHAPTER V 


KATE MAKES UP A FACE 



£ THEY neared their doors Elsie said, “ Please 


1 * tell Bertha if she’s in your room that I shall be 
in the sitting-room when she’s through helping you. 
I’m going right to bed then.” 

She stopped with her hand on the knob. “ Wouldn’t 
you like to see the sitting-room? It’s yours, too, 
now.” 

Kate looked in as Elsie opened the door and stood 
back. Now she knew why Bertha had said that 
room was more “comfortable” than her bedroom. 
In contrast to it her bedroom was almost nun-like. 
There were deep chairs upholstered in gay cretonne, 
cretonne with parrots and poppies and birds of 
paradise glowing against its yellow background. 
There was even a little lounge, heaped with yellow 
pillows, drawn up under the windows. In the cen¬ 
tre of the room stood a square cherry-wood reading 
table, and the walls were almost lined with book¬ 
shelves already about one third filled with books. 
On the table stood a glass bowl filled with red roses. 
A Japanese floor lamp cast a mellow light over 
everything. In one corner a practical old Governor 
Winthrop desk with many drawers and a wide 


59 


o 


6 o 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


writing leaf drew Kate’s eyes. Imagine having a 
desk like that just for one’s own! 

But she did not show her appreciation of the room. 
She simply glanced about it, as Elsie seemed to ex¬ 
pect her to, and then muttering a crusty “ good-night” 
crossed the hall to her own room. 

Bertha was waiting for her there. Evidently 
Aunt Katherine had instructed her that Kate would 
retire early. The opal lamp by the bed was shedding 
its delicate radiance through the room, the bed was 
turned down, Kate’s dressing gown and nightgown 
were spread across its foot, and her bedroom slippers 
stood near at hand. Her bag had long since been 
unpacked and put away. The “King of the Fairies” 
and the mystery story—Sam and Lee’s gift—lay on 
the bed table under the lamp. 

Kate was very glad of her own cool, clear little 
room. She liked it better than all that colour and 
ease across the hall. And in any case she would 
never be able to share that other room with Elsie. 
She determined not to go into it at all—no, not even 
to look over the books! 

“Miss Elsie is in the sitting-room,” she told Bertha. 
“She said to tell you that when you were ready she 
would go to bed. I don’t need any help, truly.” 

“Shan’t I even brush your hair, Miss Kate? 
That is so restful.” 

“You’ve unpacked for me. Thank you very 
much. My short hair doesn’t need much brush- 
ing.” 


KATE MAKES UP A FACE 61 

So, reluctantly, for Miss Frazier had requested her 
to attend to both girls equally, Bertha took her dis¬ 
missal. In a minute Kate heard voices on the other 
side of Elsie’s door. Then Elsie opened the door and 
looked in through the bathroom. 

“Aunt Katherine says we’re to leave these doors 
open,” she informed Kate, calmly. “That is so 
you won’t be lonely.” 

Kate nodded an “all right.” But to herself she 
said, “I’d be a heap less lonely if you’d close the 
door and I’d never see your face again.” 

She undressed well out of sight of Elsie’s room. 
When she was in nightgown, dressing robe, and slip¬ 
pers, she sat down on the three-legged ivory stool, 
before the hinged mirrors, brush in hand. She was 
surprised by the expression of her own face as it 
looked back at her grimly out of the glass. All its 
humour, its charm , was gone. She was just a rather 
plain young girl. And as she looked at this dis¬ 
enchanted reflection it suddenly went misty and 
blurred. She saw tears rising in its eyes. 

With an angry hand she dashed them away and 
stuck out her tongue at the blurred face in the 
mirror. Then came her own laugh, the eyes crin¬ 
kling to slits, the mouth freed from its set lines and 
lifting wings in a smile. 

“Idiot,” she whispered. “To cry about her! 
She’s a stuck-up little pig, but you needn’t become 
a grouchy glum just for that. Be yourself in spite 
of her.” 


62 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


But as she went toward the windows to push them 
a little farther back, for the night was a warm and 
beautiful one, she turned her head and looked 
through the open doors into Elsie’s room. Elsie 
was sitting before her own dressing table, a replica of 
Kate’s. She was in an exquisitely soft-looking pink 
dressing gown edged about the neck and the long 
flowing sleeves with swansdown. Bertha stood be¬ 
hind her, brushing her curls with long, even strokes. 
The eyes of the two girls met in Elsie’s glass. Flash- 
ingly, Kate was glad she had made up a face and got 
it over with; otherwise she would certainly have made 
up just the same face now, at Elsie, before thinking. 

The pairs of eyes held each other in the glass for 
an instant. It must have been something deceiving 
in the twin lights glowing at either side of Elsie’s 
mirror, or in the glass itself, Kate decided after¬ 
ward, but for that instant it seemed that a comrade 
had looked questioningly out of the mirror at her! 
But the hidden comrade, if such it was, vanished even 
before Kate had time to turn away. 

What a delicious bed Aunt Katherine had given 
her! She delighted in its scented linen and light covers. 
She punched the fluffy pillows up into a bolster, 
slipped out of her dressing gown and in between the 
smooth, lavender-scented sheets. Sitting there 
against the pillows she took “The King of the Fair¬ 
ies” on to her knee. She couldn’t sleep quite yet, 
she knew. Why, at home she seldom went to bed 
before her mother, and now it was not yet nine. 


KATE MAKES UP A FACE 63 

The very sight, even the feeling of this book in her 
hands filled her with a happy stir deep in the far wells 
of imagination. She opened it casually. Any place 
would do since she already knew it practically by 
heart. The very sight of the smooth, clearly printed 
pages with their wide margins freed her. She was 
ready for space now and clear, disentangled ad- 
venturings into light. 

Although the book was titled “The King of the 
Fairies 5 ’ it was not at all a fairy story for children. 
Kate had only just reached the age when it could 
be cared about. It began with a girl and a boy 
quarrelling on a fence in a meadow. It was a real 
quarrel, a horrid quarrel with hot and sharp and 
bitter words. But it is interrupted by a tramp hap¬ 
pening by. He asks them a direction and they stop 
their recriminations for the time to point him his 
way scornfully. Accepting their directions he still 
tarries a while to ask them if they themselves don’t 
want some pointing. Then the story, the marvel¬ 
lous story begins. He points to an elder bush and 
asks them what it is. They tell him glibly. Then 
he gets on to the fence between them and with his 
eyes level with theirs asks them to look again. 
Everything is changed for the girl and boy in that 
instant. They begin seeing as the tramp sees. 
They are in Paradise or Fairyland: the author him¬ 
self makes no clear distinction. But the elder bush 
is now much more than an elder bush. And the mea¬ 
dow is full of a life the girl and boy had never sus- 


64 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

pected. There are other beings moving in it, fairy 
beings, perhaps. Not only is the invisible made 
visible to the girl and boy seeing as the tramp sees, 
but the, until then at least, partly visible—the brook, 
the trees, the very stones and the elder bush—are 
seen to have more life than could be suspected. 
And all colours are changed, too. The boy and girl 
are seeing things in a new spectrum. 

Finally the three get down from the fence and 
wander about in this Fairyland that has always been 
here truly but is only now seen. The book is their 
day in the meadow. And when you have turned the 
last page you do not remember it as a book. You 
remember it as a day in Fairyland or Paradise—or 
as a day on which you saw things clear. And you 
never doubt for a minute that the author himself 
is one who has certainly seen like that. Perhaps 
he only saw it in a flash, but he did see for himself and 
with his own eyes. 

j In the end the boy and girl return to the fence and 
the tramp departs on the way they had pointed out 
to him. But as he goes, he turns about when he 
gets to the elder bush and they realize in that last 
glance from his eyes that he is the King of the 
Fairies. Then as he turns again and walks on, as 
long as he is in their sight, he is simply a common 
tramp. 

But their quarrel has dropped for ever dead be¬ 
tween them. A boy and a girl who have actually 
walked in Fairyland together and seen things clear 


KATE MAKES UP A FACE 


65 

have nothing to quarrel about, and so long as they 
both shall live can have nothing to quarrel about 
again. 

And though they had surely seen things clear for 
a whole day in the meadow—the sun had risen to 
the meridian and gone down into the west while 
they wandered—now when they look at each other 
there is no indication that a minute has passed. 
The sun is where it was at the height of their quarrel! 
And so it appears that the tramp’s arrival and stay 
and departure and their whole day in the meadow 
was squeezed into perhaps one straight meeting of 
their eyes as they quarrelled. 

But they do not spend themselves in wonder. 
This boy and girl are Wisdom’s own children, in 
spite of the momentary silliness that had plunged 
them head-first into the darkness of an enmity; they 
accept the gods’ gifts. And for a boy and a girl 
who have spent a day in Fairyland together, or for 
that matter only spent a minute there together, the 
gods’ gift is marriage. 

Katherine, when she had finished the book, had 
said that it was the most perfect love story she had 
ever read; she wished she were rich enough to give 
it to all the lovers she knew. And she said, too, that 
the author must be a very wonderful person, a 
great man in some field of life. Perhaps that was 
why he had not signed his name to the work. 

As Kate read now, the conversation between 
Elsie and Bertha in the next room was a humming 


66 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


undertone to her thoughts. She could not have 
caught their words if she had listened. But she had 
no inclination to listen. She was moving in a world 
where quarrels and bitter feelings were an im¬ 
possibility. She was seeing things through the eyes 
of the King of the Fairies. She was in the meadows 
that she knew at home, feeling the larger life there 
that the King of the Fairies had made known to her. 
She was standing, tall, in the body of an elm tree, 
spreading with its leaves to the sun, feeling with its 
roots into the vibrating ground. 

Suddenly a voice came to her. It was a long way 
she rushed back to find the voice. Bertha was 
standing beside her bed. 

“Shall I turn out your light, Miss Kate? Or do 
you wish to read?” 

Kate did not know that Bertha had come into the 
room at all. Elsie’s light was out, and if the doors 
through must be left open, Kate’s light would dis¬ 
turb her. Of course she must put out her light and 
try to sleep. She was on the verge of saying, “I 
will put out my own light, thanks,” but the meadow 
from which she had rushed back had, oddly enough 
as some might think, put her into more perfect har¬ 
mony with her own restricted four walls. So she 
said, “You may put the light out, thank you.” 
And she did not even smile to herself when Bertha 
bent over the table and pulled at the little chain 
that was much nearer Kate’s reach than hers. 
She accepted the service naturally, since such ac- 


KATE MAKES UP A FACE 67 

ceptance was Aunt Katherine’s wish and the purpose 
of Bertha’s presence here. 

“Good-night,” Bertha spoke out of the sudden 
darkness. 

“Good-night,” Kate answered. Then soft footfalls, 
and she was alone in the room. 

But though “The King of the Fairies” had done a 
good deal for Kate it had not had time to do enough 
to make her call a “good-night” to Elsie. Suppose 
Aunt Katherine knew the two girls were going to 
sleep without a word to each other! 

From her bed, now that the room was dark, Kate 
could see the dim apple orchard under starlight. 
She rose on her elbow and strained her eyes for the 
outlines of the little orchard house. She found it 
by hard looking. How mysterious, how lonely, still 
how alive out there it stood. And she had heard a 
door close softly, just as though a door knob had 
turned as they stood below those open back windows. 
And why were those windows open? Elsie knew, 
Kate was sure. The little orchard house harboured 
some secret of Elsie’s. 

But what was that! Kate sat up in bed and bent 
toward the window, her eyes straining. A light, 
flickering, was moving down through the house! 
Kate watched it as it went by several windows, 
breathless. Soon it disappeared altogether, and a 
second after Kate thought she heard the front door 
of the little orchard house softly closing, or opening; 
but that must have been fancy, for the orchard 


o> 


68 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


house was much too far away for a sound of that 
quality to carry to her. 

As she curled down into bed again her eyes crinkled 
with her smile in the darkness. Well, here was 
mystery. She would write Sam and Lee that she 
would save their mystery story for duller times. 
Now she was living in one! 


CHAPTER VI 


“i WILL PAY FOR IT” 


17 "" ATE was 
about in 


waked next morning by Elsie moving 
her room. She opened her eyes quickly 


and sat up. To her surprise Elsie was dressed and 
ready for the day. She looked as fresh as the July 
morning in a blue and white gingham, white sport 
shoes and stockings. Her hair was pinned up at 
her ears, and that made her look older but not less 
pretty than last night. 

Kate was not a girl to wake up with a grudge on a 
morning like this, or on any morning, in fact. So 
she sang out now, “ Hello !” 

But Elsie, apparently, had not been mellowed by 
sleep. She responded to the “hello” with a nod. 
Then, much to Kate’s surprise, she came directly 
to the bed and picked up “The King of the Fairies” 
from the table there. 

“Bertha told me you had borrowed my book,” she 
said. “I don’t mind your borrowing books. But I 
think you ought to ask. And Aunt Katherine didn’t 
give me this one. I’m going to read outdoors before 
breakfast, and I want ‘The King of the Fairies,’ 
if you don’t mind.” 

Kate laughed. “It’s my copy, not yours,” she 
69 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


70 

said. ‘‘Mother and I gave it to each other last 
Easter. It’s a perfectly great book, Mother thinks, 
and I brought it with me here because I love it so.” 

Elsie was standing directly in the gilded morning 
sunlight. Kate had just waked up and her eyes 
were still a little dazed from sleep. That may ac¬ 
count for her seeing again, flashingly, the comrade 
she had surprised in the mirror last night. Surely 
Elsie’s whole being in that flash radiated comrade¬ 
ship. And there was something more. Kate could 
not remember, but sometime in her life—it felt a 
long time ago—she had exchanged glances with that 
golden comrade! Or had it been just a vivid dream 
she had had, or perhaps only the ideal she had set 
up in her mind of the perfect comrade? 

But Elsie almost instantly moved out of the sun¬ 
light nearer the bed, and everything was as before. 

“Please pardon me,” she said coldly. “I don’t 
know why it never entered my head that you might 
have a copy of your own. That was stupid of me. 
I’ll see you at breakfast.” 

“So it is still on,” Kate told herself, as Elsie left 
the room. “She hates me. She hates me just 
awfully. And that was awfully rude about the book, 
even if it had been hers! How could she be so rude 
—to a guest? She is afraid of me, too. She is afraid 
I will discover the secret of the orchard house. 
Why, perhaps she doesn’t hate me, personally at all. 
Mayn’t it be just fear that makes her like that? 
For she has no reason to hate me, and of course if 


“I WILL PAY FOR IT” 71 

she has some secret in the orchard house she has 
every reason to think I may discover it. For I do 
mean to explore it thoroughly when I get around to 
it.” 

Somehow the conviction she had come to, that fear 
rather than personal dislike was ruling Elsie’s con¬ 
duct, comforted her. Moreover, it was a perfect 
morning—sunshine, a light breeze at the curtains, 
birds carolling (how had she ever slept through the 
noise those birds were making?) and the room 
pervaded by flower scents from balcony and gar¬ 
dens. It was with a light heart, then, that Kate 
allowed Bertha to run her bath, lay out her clothes, 
and finally even brush the bobbed hair. Such un¬ 
needed service seemed absurd to Kate, but it was in 
the order of this household, and some fresh sweetness 
she had brought from sleep made her eager to har¬ 
monize herself as much as possible with the world 
she had come back to. But even so, in a minute 
when Bertha’s back was turned, Kate grabbed the 
brush from the dressing table and gave a quick, 
surreptitious stroke that turned the bang Bertha 
had created into a wing across her brows; for Bertha, 
experienced lady’s maid as she was, had not caught 
the knack of that so quickly. 

It was with a heart as bright as the morning that 
Kate finally went down the long stairs just as the 
soft-toned gong was sounding. There was no sign 
of breakfast being laid in the dining-room, so she 
wandered about the house, in and out of the rooms 


72 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

she had only glimpsed through open doors last 
night. 

Everything was quite beautiful. Kate knew that 
Aunt Katherine had once been determined to “go in 
for art seriously.” But at that time money had been 
lacking for such a design, and she had with keen 
disappointment submitted to fate and become a 
school teacher. When wealth had suddenly come 
to her everyone thought she would, of course, take 
up study with some great master and become an 
artist. But this never came about. Perhaps the first 
disappointment had been too keen; perhaps in giving 
up her hope so definitely she had made it impossible 
for herself ever to renew it under any conditions. 

But now, wandering about these rooms that Aunt 
Katherine had made, Kate realized that she had 
turned artist in a way. Instead of painting on 
canvas she had created beauty in her environment. 
For her home was like a warmly painted picture with 
beautiful lights and shadows. And Kate soon felt 
as though she were walking around in a picture. 
The morning sunshine outside was its great gilded 
frame. That was how the utter silence and ab¬ 
sence of human beings in these big downstairs rooms 
explained itself to her fancy; somehow she had walked 
into a picture painted by her great aunt, a picture 
hung up somewhere in an enormous gilded frame. 
This fancy stirred her imagination and she pretended 
so hard to herself that it became quite real. 

That is why she almost started when she finally 


“I WILL PAY FOR IT” 


73 

did hear voices and the clink of china. Coming 
out of the picture into everyday life, suddenly like 
that, was something of a jar. And she was probably 
late for breakfast wherever it was being served. 
She hurried her steps and found Aunt Katherine and 
Elsie already at the meal. They were sitting at a 
little table under a peach tree growing up between 
the flags of a terrace just outside a sunny breakfast- 
room. How delightful! Kate was glad now to step 
down out of the picture. 

Aunt Katherine greeted her with a welcoming 
smile. And having just stepped down out of Aunt 
Katherine’s picture Kate felt that she understood 
her, that they were very close to each other really. 
How different, and how pleasantly different, Great 
Aunt Katherine was proving herself from Kate’s 
preconceived ideas of her. 

Kate took the little garden chair waiting for her 
and unfolded her napkin. Coffee was percolating 
visibly in two large glass globes set one on top of the 
other before Aunt Katherine. The silver sugar bowl 
and cream pitcher turned all the sunlight that found 
them into a million diamond sparkles. A half grape¬ 
fruit with ice snuggled about it was at Kate’s place. 
Kate lifted the slender pointed spoon made just 
for grapefruit, and gratefully tasted the tart pulp 
and juice. 

“ Elsie might have shown you the way,” Aunt 
Katherine was saying. “I thought of course you 
would come down together.” 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


74 

“I am sorry I was late. But it was fun wandering 
around in the house trying to find you/’ And then 
Kate told them all about how she had felt herself in a 
picture. 

Aunt Katherine was pleased. “Was it really like 
that to you, my house?” she asked. 

“Oh, yes! and more so than I know how to say. 
Most of the windows and doors open, the glimpses of 
tree branches and flowers and sky, the light and shade 
in the rooms, all the flowers in vases in surprising 
places, the colours of everything, the hangings-” 

Kate stopped, embarrassed by her own enthusiasm, 
or perhaps discomfited by Elsie’s cool gaze. But 
she had said more than enough to give Aunt Kather¬ 
ine very real and deep pleasure. 

“Then I see,” she told Kate, “why you did not 
mind wandering about alone or our seeming in¬ 
hospitality. And I think your dress, my dear, fitted 
into the picture. It is a very poetic dress.” 

Kate flushed with pleasure. “Mother would love 
to hear you say that,” she said. “We made it out 
of the new chintz curtains in her bedroom. You 
see I had to have some dresses, and there were the 
curtains. Mother thought-” 

But at mention of her mother Kate saw in morning 
light what she had failed to see last night in lamp¬ 
light: the deepening of pain lines around Aunt 
Katherine’s eyes and mouth, a cloud of pain somehow 
in her face. So she broke off her account of Kather¬ 
ine’s ingenuity. 


“I WILL PAY FOR IT” 


75 


“I’m glad you like it,” she finished lamely. 

“I have brought you the key to the orchard 
house,” Aunt Katherine said, as though it were a 
matter she would like to be done with quickly. 
“Elsie will show you all over it and around it. Then 
I have an errand at the post office I wish you girls 
would do for me. I have a very busy morning ahead. 
The car is at your disposal this morning, and I should 
think you would take a good long ride. It is really 
too warm to do anything more energetic. At least, 
it promises to be a very warm day.” 

Kate looked at the key which Aunt Katherine had 
handed her. It was an old-fashioned brass key, 
clumsy and heavy but not too big to go into her 
pocket. When she had tucked it away there she 
raised defiant eyes to Elsie. But her defiance sud¬ 
denly turned to pity. Elsie looked so troubled! 

Aunt Katherine with a word of apology to the girls 
picked up the mail now lying at her place and began 
reading the one or two personal letters she found 
among the circulars, pleas for charity, and adver¬ 
tisements. Kate leaned toward Elsie and said 
quickly and softly, “Don’t worry. You’re safe to¬ 
day and to-morrow, too, and for as long as you 
mind, I guess. If I see the little house sometime, 
what does it matter when?” 

Elsie nodded to signify that she had caught the 
very low words, and her face cleared. 

“Ungrateful thing! She might at least have 
thanked me,” Kate reflected. 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


76 

But very soon she learned that Elsie was thanking 
her for that impulsive gesture of generosity in her 
own way. When they joined each other in the big 
car that was waiting for them at the door, half an 
hour later, Elsie was plainly trying to force herself 
to be friendly and natural. But since this friend¬ 
liness was forced, Kate’s response to it was of ne¬ 
cessity forced, too. Oh, how different everything 
was turning out between these two girls from the 
way Kate had dreamed it! 

“ Don’t you think Oakdale is pretty ? ” Elsie asked. 
“People care so much about their gardens. And 
then the streets are all so wide and shady, and where 
they aren’t wide they are just little lanes like ours 
that end perhaps in a gate or an open meadow. 
Those endings of streets seem romantic to me al¬ 
ways.” 

“Yes, I think they are romantic,” Kate agreed. 
“And when your lane turned all the away around and 
ended in the orchard, that must have been awfully 
romantic. I wonder why Aunt Katherine ever let 
the grass grow over it so that it got lost, the end of the 
lane!” 

Something in Elsie’s restrained silence at this 
remark made Kate realize that she had blundered. 
Oh, dear! She hadn’t meant to. Truly! She tried 
to explain. 

“You see it was my mother’s house, Elsie. You 
can’t know what fun it is to imagine your mother 
a little girl, to see for the first time the house where 


“I WILL PAY FOR IT” 


77 

she was born and the places where she played. 
Everything about your mother’s childhood—well, 
there’s a kind of mystery about it.” 

Elsie deliberately turned away her face. “Oh, 
I’m sorry. What an idiot I am! I had forgotten 
about your mother! How could I be such a—brute!” 

Elsie looked at Timothy’s back steadily. “Don’t 
be so sorry as all that,” she replied coolly and with¬ 
out any apparent emotion in her voice. “ My mother 
was killed in an automobile accident in France two 
years ago. But I never knew her, anyway. When 
I was at home she was usually somewhere else, at 
house-parties or sanitariums, or abroad. And I 
was only home for holidays. She sent me off to 
boarding school when I was eight. Her being dead 
hasn’t made much difference to me. I was terribly 
sorry for her when they told me, that was all. She 
was so pretty, and too young-seeming to be a mother. 
And she would have hated dying! Sometimes 
I ache for her when I think of that. But that’s 
all.” 

“Oh, how can you! How can you speak about a 
dead mother like that!” Kate’s heart was crying. 
But she only said, after a second: “There are lots 
of jolly-looking girls and boys in this town. Do you 
know them all? They keep looking at us, but you 
never speak. Don’t you see people? Mother’s 
like that. She’s so absent minded.” 

But even this was an unfortunate subject. Un¬ 
lucky Kate! 


7 8 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

“I know who most of them are but of course I 
don’t know them socially.” 

This was amazing. “ Why not ? ” 

But here all Elsie’s attempt at friendliness broke 
down. She turned on Kate a tigerish face. “Yes, 
why not?” she almost hissed. “You know very 
well, Kate Marshall, why not. Here’s the post 
office.” 

Kate was shocked. “Well, I certainly don't know 
‘why not’,” she contradicted. “I haven’t the least 
idea—unless you treat them in the rude, horrid way 
you treat me.” 

The car had drawn up to the curb and come to a 
stand-still before the pride of Oakdale’s civic life, its 
white marble post office built on the lines of a Greek 
temple. Elsie’s only answer to Kate’s denial was 
a shrug. 

“Have you letters? And are there any errands?” 

Timothy stood on the sidewalk asking for orders. 

Elsie stood up quickly. “I’ll post the letters 
myself,” she answered him. Kate noticed for the 
first time a package that Elsie was carrying. Across 
the top the word “Manuscript” was written in a 
round hand, and the address was that of a publishing 
house and caught Kate’s attention because it was 
the same publishing house that had brought out 
“The King of the Fairies.” Kate read the large 
round black handwriting quite mechanically and 
without any motive of curiosity as Elsie stepped 
past her out of the car. 


“I WILL PAY FOR IT” 


79 

When Elsie was halfway up the post-office steps 
she turned and ran back to the curb. “Tell me,” 
she said, “didn’t Aunt Katherine ask us to do some¬ 
thing for her? I’ve quite forgotten what it was.” 

“Yes. A dollar book of stamps and ten special 
deliveries. She gave you the money.” 

“Oh, thanks. Good for your memory.” 

“What is she sending to those publishers?” 
Kate found herself wondering when the spinning 
glass doors had closed on her “cousin.” “There 
was a special delivery stamp on it, too. And it 
filled her mind so full that she quite forgot Aunt’s 
errands. Can Elsie be trying to write ? Oh, wouldn’t 
that be exciting!” 

“Now Holt and Holt’s,” Elsie ordered Timothy 
when she returned to the car. 

“Holt and Holt’s is a grocery store. I noticed it 
as we came by,” Kate said. “I didn’t hear Aunt 
Katherine say anything about groceries.” 

“Of course not. Julia, the cook, attends to all that 
over the telephone. This is my errand. Do you 
mind?” 

Kate refused to rise to the sarcasm in Elsie’s “Do 
you mind?” 

But at the grocers’ she said, “I think I’ll come, too, 
and stretch my legs.” 

“All right.” But Kate distinctly felt that Elsie 
did not at all like the idea of having her companion¬ 
ship in the store. However, her pride would not let 
her turn back now, of course. 


8 o THE VANISHING COMRADE 

Elsie’s order was given briskly: “A head of crisp 
Iceland lettuce,” she said, “a small bottle of salad oil, 
genuine Italian, half a pound of almonds, half a 
dozen eggs, and the smallest loaf of bread you 
have. Oh, yes, and a pound of flour, i-f you sell so 
little.” 

“Thanks,” said the young clerk who had written 
the order down in his book. 

But Elsie waited. He looked at her inquiringly. 
“Anything more?” 

“No. But I want what I ordered.” 

“ I thought we’d send it, of course. It will be quite 
a load.” 

“No. Please do the things up and put them into 
my car for me. How much is it all ? ” 

“Oh, that’s all right. You’re Miss Frazier, aren’t 
you? You folks have a charge account here.” 

“However, I want to pay for these things myself. 
Do not by any means put them on Miss Frazier’s 
account.” Elsie spoke primly but with flushed 
cheeks that contradicted her outward composure. 

“Thought I’d just tell you. Yesterday when you 
came in and paid for things Mr. Holt said there must 
be some mistake.” 

“There is no mistake. And will you please put 
the box of eggs in a bag? Not just tie them with 
a string like that!” 

“We’re going up your way, miss, in about ten 
minutes. Why don’t we take ’em?” 

But Elsie shook her head, biting her lips with an- 


“I WILL PAY FOR IT” 81 

noyance at the young man’s persistence. She com¬ 
manded him to put the things into the car. 

“To the Bookshop now,” she ordered Timothy 
as they started again. 

At the Bookshop Kate did not speak of getting out, 
though it certainly attracted her more than the 
grocery store. But Elsie herself turned at the door. 
“Don’t you want to come, too, Kate?” she called. 
“It’s an awfully cunning little place.” 

Kate and her mother were always drawn by book¬ 
shops wherever they found them, and they spent in 
them during the course of a year a sum that it would 
have taken no budget expert to see was all out of 
proportion to their income. But then, Katherine 
always said when the subject of “budgeting” came 
up that it was as foolish to make rules about the 
spending of money as it would be to make rules about 
the spending of time. It was a matter for the in¬ 
dividual, strictly. Kate followed Elsie eagerly, 
now. 

It was such a little shop that Kate, although she 
immediately gravitated toward a table of books that 
interested her particularly, could not avoid hearing 
Elsie’s conversation with the Bookshop woman. 

“Have you Havelock Ellis’s ‘Dance of Life’?” she 
asked. 

“Yes, a new order has just come in. I knew 
Miss Frazier wanted it and I was sending it up first 
thing this afternoon. Would you like to take it?” 

“Yes, I’ll take one for my aunt, if she ordered it. 


82 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

I’ll take two. One is for myself, and I will pay for 
it.” 

“Your aunt always charges. Sha’n’t I charge them 
both?” 

“No, I will pay for it. How much is it?” 

“Four dollars.” 

“Four dollars! Oh, dear! So much?” 

The woman was very obliging. “Why not charge 
it?” she suggested again, for Elsie was looking woe¬ 
fully into her purse. 

“No. Let me think a minute. Well, I won’t buy 
it to-day.” 

Elsie’s face had so fallen, she was so obviously dis¬ 
appointed, that Kate went over to her. “I have 
money,” she offered. “Five dollars. You can bor¬ 
row from me.” 

But as she spoke her glance quite unconsciously 
fell upon the purse opened in Elsie’s hand. A little 
roll of crisp bills lay there for any one to see, amount¬ 
ing surely to more than four dollars. 

“No, thanks.” Elsie replied, snapping the purse 
shut. “Let’s go home.” 

Kate turned it over quickly as they went back 
to the car. Why had Elsie acted, as she certainly 
had acted, as though she did not have four dollars 
in her purse when it was perfectly plain that she 
had more? And why did she want the book, any¬ 
way? Katherine had bought that book less than a 
week ago, and Kate had had an opportunity to look 
into it to find what of interest there might be for 


“I WILL PAY FOR IT” 


83 

herself. She had found nothing. It was decidedly 
a book for adults, a rather deep book, and, to Kate’s 
mind, a dull book. But perhaps Elsie only wanted 
it to give away. Anyway, she would ask no ques¬ 
tions. It was none of her business. 

Timothy showed distinct surprise at Elsie’s non¬ 
chalant “Home, Timothy.” And Kate understood 
his surprise. Aunt Katherine had given them the 
car for the morning and Timothy was all prepared 
to start off on a long drive. But Elsie had appar¬ 
ently forgotten about this in her worry over the 
book. And Kate had no impulse to remind her. 
If things were only as one might expect them to be, 
not all so strangely mysterious and unpleasant, a car 
at her disposal and a comrade on a beautiful sum¬ 
mer morning like this would have seemed the height 
of pleasure. But such a ride with Elsie would cer¬ 
tainly be no fun, and she did not think until it was 
too late that she alone with Timothy might start 
off on an exploring adventure. 

When they got out of the car in front of their 
own door, Timothy, as a matter of course, expected 
to take the packages from the grocery store around 
to the servants’ entrance. But Elsie held out her 
hands for them. He relinquished them to her, 
plainly puzzled. Surely they were groceries! 

When the two girls stood together in the big front 
hall Kate said briefly: “Good-bye. I’m going out 
into the garden.” 

“Wait on the terrace 


outside the drawing-room 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


and Til come with you/’ Elsie responded, very un¬ 
expectedly. “ First HI just run up to my room with 
these bundles. I know a lot about the kinds of 
flowers and things in the garden. Let me show it 
all to you.” 

Kate was almost dazed by this suggestion. She 
had certainly been made to feel that Elsie was only 
too eager to get rid of her company. She stood 
where she had been left, wondering. 

Why had Elsie taken lettuce and oil and bread and 
eggs and flour and nuts up to her room? What 
could she ever do with them up there? 

“HI not ask her about it,” she promised herself, 
“just not a thing. But I shall write to Mother and 
the boys this morning. I won’t tell Mother how 
horrid Elsie is being, though. She would be too 
disappointed for me. And I’m really not having 
such a bad time as it might sound. But I’ll tell the 
boys just everything. They will be as mystified as 
I am. And to think I was dissatisfied with them 
for chums and wanted a girl! I’ll appreciate them 
when I get back, that’s certain. Oh, of course! 
Why didn’t I think at first! Elsie doesn’t trust me 
in the garden alone! That’s why she wants to come 
with me. She is afraid I won’t keep my promise. 
She’s afraid I will go ‘prowling’ around the orchard 
house. I just wish I hadn’t promised not to use the 
key. It would be something to do with this morning 
she’s spoiled. And something to write Mother 
about. And it might explain some of the mystery. 


“I WILL PAY FOR IT” 


85 

There was a light last night. I saw it plain enough. 
The boys will be interested in all that. How soon 
can I expect letters from home, I wonder?” 

With these thoughts Kate went out through the 
cool, shady drawing-room and on to the terrace. 
There in the shade of some trellised wisteria she sat 
down on a garden bench to wait for Elsie. 


CHAPTER VII 


“even so-” 

T^LSIE was a very long time in coming. As the 
^ minutes dragged themselves along Kate’s cheeks 
began to get hot even before she realized that she 
was angry. But after she had waited so long 
that she was convinced Elsie was not coming at 
all she got up with a shrug. Any one who knew 
Kate would have seen at once that she was in no 
ordinary mood; for shrugs or any such Latin meth¬ 
ods of self-expression were quite foreign to this girl, 
New England bred. 

She went up to her room for paper. Now was the 
time to write to her mother and Sam and Lee. Cer¬ 
tainly she had enough to tell them! 

The door to the sitting-room across the hall was 
standing open and a glance assured Kate that it 
was empty. And while she did not actually look into 
Elsie’s room she heard no sound and felt that Elsie 
was not there. But she had no idea where Bertha had 
put the writing paper when she unpacked the suit¬ 
case and the envelopes and stamps. She searched 
through the drawers of the dressing table. But 
there were only her ribbons, her handkerchiefs, her 
underclothes arranged artistically. No sign of pa- 
86 



“EVEN so 


per or fountain pen. So, although she had meant 
never to go into the sitting-room, she was forced to 
now. Her writing materials must be in the desk 
there. 

She found them at once. And now being in the 
room, she took the occasion to look all about. It 
was the jolliest place imaginable for a girl to call 
her own! And since the morning had grown rather 
oppressively hot it was a refuge, too; for there was a 
breeze on this side of the house and it was the coolest 
spot Kate had found herself in that morning. Tree 
shadows stood on the walls, and leaf shadows shook 
in a green, cool light. It would be very nice to sit 
here and write. But Kate could not bring herself to 
do it. She reminded herself that this was Elsie’s 
desk and room, and therefore hateful. 

Picking up her own property she hurried out and 
down the stairs. Once in the garden she made 
directly for the apple orchard. She would allow 
herself to walk along the edge viewing the orchard 
house from that angle. If Elsie called that prowling, 
let her! As she walked she felt the brass key in her 
pocket. But though now her whole mind was on the 
house and her desire to go into it, it never entered 
her head to break her promise. Elsie certainly de¬ 
served her anger, but revengeful thinking was quite 
outside of Kate’s mentality. 

When she had walked the whole length of the 
orchard she came to a low, broad hedge that marked 
the termination of Aunt Katherine’s grounds. Near 



88 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

it she sat down, not in the orchard but in its shade, 
and placing her block of paper on her knee began 
to write. 

“Dearest Mother”:—And then so suddenly that 
it startled her, tears blotted the two words. At the 
same minute she heard running feet. Kate winked 
fast and furiously and looked up. Elsie was standing 
over her. She was flushed from running in the heat 
and her eyes were very bright and soft. Again she 
was radiating happiness as on Kate’s first glimpse 
of her. On her arm swung a straw basket and one 
hand held a pair of shining shears. Kate felt that 
she would rather die on the spot than let Elsie guess 
that she was crying. But if Elsie saw the tears she 
showed no sign. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t get here sooner, and that I 
asked you to wait.” She spoke in a conciliatory tone. 
“Truly I’m not so rude as I seemed. But I had an 
unexpected opportunity to attend to something that 
needed attention and there wasn’t time to run down 
and tell you. It had to be done quickly. But now 
I’m ready. I thought as we walked around I’d cut 
some flowers for our rooms. Aunt Katherine likes 
me to keep my vases filled.” 

Now it was Kate who was cold and distant. 
Her shame in her tea'rs made that necessary. “I’m 
writing to my mother,” she answered. “And I 
don’t need to be entertained a bit. Some other 
time I’ll help you with the flowers.” 

Elsie’s glow flickered and went out. “Very well,” 


“EVEN SO 


89 

she said, and turned away sharply to cut some 
nasturtiums growing around the foot of an apple 
tree. 

But just as she turned there came a shout from 
over the hedge. A boy older than themselves, in 
fact a young man of seventeen probably, had come 
to the tennis court, only a few paces beyond the 
hedge, with a racket and balls in his hand. He was 
calling to a girl on the steps of the piazza of the 
house next door. “Hurry up,” he shouted. “Come 
on.” 

“Yes. Just a minute.” The girl was bending over 
on the steps, tying her shoe perhaps. In a minute 
she had come bounding down the long slope of the 
lawn and joined her brother. 

Kate looked at them interestedly. “Who are 
they?” she asked of Elsie. Elsie gave her the in¬ 
formation without turning. “That’s Rose Denton 
and her brother Jack. And they’d ask you to 
play, probably, if they saw you, and I weren’t here. 
They just barely speak to me.” 

“Barely speak to you? And they live right next 
door!” 

“Yes, queer, isn’t it!” The voice above the nas¬ 
turtiums was sarcastic. “Only get yourself noticed 
and you’ll soon know them. Hope you have a 
good time.” 

Elsie straightened up, adjusted her basket on her 
arm, and moved away. But Kate called after her, her 
voice shaking with anger, “I don’t know why you 



THE VANISHING COMRADE 


90 

are so queer, Elsie Frazier, or why you haven’t 
friends. But while I’m visiting you it isn’t likely 
I’d play with people who won’t play with you, no 
matter how much they asked me. That’s that.” 

Elsie turned and walked backward now. “Well, 
Kate Marshall, I’m afraid you’ll have just a horrid 
month then,” she prophesied. And with a strange, 
almost strangled little laugh she whirled about and 
was really off with her basket and shears. 

Kate watched her as she went, floating toward the 
gardens across the smooth lawn. “She walks like a 
dryad,” she thought, “and she looks like a Dorothy 
Lathrop fairy.” Then she smiled a little woefully 
at her own fancy. “She may look like a fairy but 
she’s a horrid, stuck-up thing just the same,” she 
reminded herself. 

But she found relief for her overcharged emotions 
when she came to the compositions of her letter to 
the Hart boys. There she described Elsie just as she 
was and had behaved. Not one unpleasant thing 
that Elsie had done was forgotten. Perhaps it was 
rather horrid of Kate to complain so unrestrainedly 
and set down so much criticism. But she did not 
give that a thought—not then. When the letter 
was finished and in its envelope she pulled it out 
again to add a postscript. 

P. S. It’s all true what I have told you about Elsie Frazier, 
every bit. But even so, I don’t hate her and now that I’ve writ¬ 
ten about her I’m not even angry any more. She’s hardly said 
a friendly word or acted a bit as you would expect her to to a 


“EVEN SO 


9i 


99 

guest, but even so if she only were nice to me I’d be quite crazy 
about her. That isn’t just because she’s so pretty, either. I 
don’t know why I feel that way, but I do. She’s exactly the 
sort of chum I’ve always imagined having some day. And 
there’s one thing good I can tell you about her. She likes 
“The King of the Fairies,” I think. Anyway, she owns it. So 
what do you make of it all? And what about the light in the 
orchard house? And why do you suppose Elsie is so set against 
my using the key? And why did she buy those groceries and 
take them up to her room ? Don’t tell Mother a word I’ve told 
you about how mean Elsie is. She must think I’m having a 
lovely time—at least, until I know whether I can stick it out or 
not. K. M. 



CHAPTER VIII 


KATE MEETS A DETECTIVE 

Kate came to luncheon that day she was 
* * surprised to see a letter lying at her place. 
So soon? Why, she had not been here a day yet! 

“It’s not your mother’s handwriting,” Aunt 
Katherine said, a little curiously. 

“No, it’s from the boys. Oh, I’m so glad!” 

“The boys?” 

“Yes, I told you about them last night, you know. 
The twins. The Harts. How jolly of them to 
write me so soon!” 

“ But what can they have to tell you since yester¬ 
day ?” 

“It will be all about Mother, and much better than 
a letter from her herself because she doesn’t know 
how to tell about herself, you know. She’s always so 
silent on that subject. Do you mind, Aunt, if I 
just open it and peek?” 

“Of course, my dear, read it. Elsie and I will 
excuse you.” 

But there was almost no letter inside. There was 
one paragraph in the exact centre of a big square 
sheet of yellow notepaper, written in a script so small 
and round and legible that it was almost print like. 

92 


KATE MEETS A DETECTIVE 


93 

But the very wide margins were bordered with a 
series of pen sketches that told a story in its progres¬ 
sive action something in the way a moving picture 
does. It was the story of a picnic the Harts had 
arranged for yesterday afternoon with Katherine 
the guest of honour. Professor Hart, in *an endea¬ 
vour to rescue the lunch basket which had fallen into 
a brook, had evidently fallen in after it. That 
perhaps was the high mark in the artist’s work. But 
the picnic had been chock full of adventure one could 
see at a glance; and Lee’s quick humour and real art 
had turned even the worst mishaps into fun. 

The paragraph was in Sam’s hand, and began: 
“Dear Kate, if you are well it is well. We also 
are well.” Apparently he had nothing whatsoever 
to say, but he said it cheerfully. 

Kate crinkled up her eyes and laughed so whole¬ 
heartedly over the nonsense that she felt herself 
rude. She passed the paper to Aunt Katherine. 
“You will see that I can’t help it,” she explained. 

And Aunt Katherine, after she had studied the 
pictures a few seconds and skimmed the paragraph, 
laughed, too, a light, genuinely amused laugh. “It’s 
not only funny, though,” she insisted, “it’s artistic. 
Which boy drew these pictures?” 

“Lee. He’s always sketching. He means to be 
a real artist.” 

“I think he is that already. All he needs now is 
study. I would say he has a future if he has the will 
to stick to it.” 




94 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

Aunt Katherine now handed the letter to Elsie 
and turned back to Kate to remark: “Your mother, 
on accepting my invitation for you, mentioned the 
fact that you were lonely, in need of friends as much 
as Elsie. But I don’t see how any one could be 
more companionable or amusing than these boys, 
from your descriptions and this letter.” 

Kate glowed at Aunt Katherine’s appreciation of 
Sam and Lee. “Oh, Mother meant girl friends. 
There just doesn’t happen to be any one near my age 
in Ashland. And while boys are all right, they 
aren’t exactly the same.” 

Elsie had lost some of her indifference and coldness 
over the letter. She was almost smiling, in fact. 
Now she was actually smiling. Kate beamed. 
This was certainly the most natural minute and the 
happiest since her arrival. She blessed the Hart 
boys for having created it. 

But Aunt Katherine was surprised when it de¬ 
veloped that the girls had not been exploring the 
countryside in the car that morning. 

“Didn’t you use Timothy at all?” she asked. 

“Just for errands in the town. Kate wrote letters 
and I picked and arranged flowers, and read ‘The 
King of the Fairies.’” 

“One would think, Elsie, you possessed only one 
book. When are you going to finish with ‘The 
King of the Fairies’?” 

“Oh, I don’t know.” Elsie’s tone had fallen 
suddenly into sulkiness. 


KATE MEETS A DETECTIVE 


95 

But though Aunt Katherine did not seem to notice 
the sudden chilling of the atmosphere, Kate did and 
spoke quickly, a trifle nervously. 

“Haven't you read ‘The King of the Fairies,' 
Aunt Katherine?" 

“Why, no. It's a fairy story, a child's book. It 
surprises me that Elsie, a big girl of fifteen, finds it 
so fascinating." 

“Mother finds it fascinating, too," Kate hurried 
to assure her. “And I know it just about by heart. 
Mother keeps saying it's the most beautiful love 
story she ever read. And even the boys like it. 
They felt just the way you do about its title. But 
once they got into it they couldn't stop. If you 
read it yourself you’d see why." 

Kate was fairly radiant with her enthusiasm about 
this book. Her aunt smiled into her eager eyes. “I 
shall certainly look it over, then," she promised. 
“It must be an unusual book to inspire such loyalty." 

“I'll bring my copy down and put it on your 
reading table right after luncheon." 

“You have a copy with you! It must be a favour¬ 
ite! Thank you, Kate." 

But Elsie did not offer a word to this topic. She 
sat, colder than ever, looking at the wall to the 
right of Kate's shoulder. 

“As Timothy hasn't been working this morning, 
I think I shall have him take me in to Boston this 
afternoon," Aunt Katherine said, as she helped the 
girls to lemon ice which had just been set before her 


96 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

in a frosted bowl. “ Driving is about the coolest 
thing one can do to-day. Will either or both of you 
come with me?” 

“Oh, yes. I should love to.” Kate was se¬ 
cretly relieved that with this promise she would not be 
thrown alone with Elsie again that afternoon. And 
she was even more relieved when Elsie said, “I don’t 
believe I’ll go, thank you, Aunt Katherine. I shall 
read or do something here.” 

As Kate was on her way up to get her hat for the 
drive she was stopped at the stair-turning by a 
woman who had come through a door connecting 
with a different staircase. She was a middle-aged, 
plump person with graying curly hair, in a starched 
black and white print dress, almost entirely con¬ 
cealed by a crisp white apron. It was the cook, 
Julia. 

“How do you do, Miss Kate,” she said, hurriedly, 
and almost in a whisper. “Excuse me, but I just 
had to ask how is your blessed mother? Miss 
Frazier never tells us anything at all. She ain’t sick 
or anything, is she, and that’s why you’re here?” 

Kate reassured her. “ But did you know Mother ? ” 
she asked. 

“Of course. We all did, ’cept Isadora. She’s new 
since. Your mother was for ever in and out of the 
house and we all loved her. Didn’t she ever tell 
you the time she broke her arm falling on the kitchen 
stairs? And she never cried, if you’ll believe me. 
Only moaned just a bit, even when the doctor come 


KATE MEETS A DETECTIVE 


97 

and fixed it. Miss Frazier was away and old Mr. 
Frazier, too. So I had to manage. Didn’t she ever 
tell you?” 

Kate had to admit that she had never heard the 
story. 

“Well, she wan’t one to talk about herself, she 
wan’t. Always interested in you and sort of forgot 
herself like.” 

Kate nodded at that. Evidently Julia did know 
her mother. 

“And you say she’s perfectly well? We’ll all be 
grateful for that.” 

Aunt Katherine’s voice came up to them from the 
hall at this point. She was talking to Elsie. As 
quickly as she had appeared, Julia whisked about and 
was out of the door through which she had come. 
But quick as a wink, and almost as if by magic, 
before she vanished she had produced from some¬ 
where a gingerbread man and pushed it into Kate’s 
hand. 

Kate looked at the gift, amused, when Julia was 
gone. “She couldn’t have realized how old I am,” 
she thought, smiling. “ She thinks I’m just Mother’s 
‘child.’” Up in her room she hid it under her 
pillow. 

It was pleasant speeding along with her aunt 
toward Boston, creating their own breeze as they 
went through the hot July afternoon. 

“Now tell me, Kate,” Aunt Katherine questioned 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


her abruptly as soon as they were on their way. 
“Are you and Elsie getting on well? Are you be¬ 
coming friends ?” 

This was difficult for Kate. She hesitated. “I 
don’t think Elsie likes me,” she said finally. “She 
tries to be—polite, I think.” 

“Not like you? Nonsense! How could she help 
liking you?” 

Kate laughed. “I suppose you cant like every¬ 
body,” she said modestly. “But Elsie doesn’t seem 
to like very many people. That boy and girl next 
door—she doesn’t play with them.” 

“Oh, Rose and Jack Denton. You know the 
reason for the coldness there, of course. But you 
are quite different.” 

“No, I don’t know the reason. Why hasn’t she 
friends here? I don’t know anything. She hasn’t 
explained at all.” 

Aunt Katherine showed real surprise. “Do you 
mean your mother hasn’t told you why things are 
difficult for Elsie? Is she as ashamed as that? 
Well, she feels even more strongly than I had sus¬ 
pected then.” 

Bitterness and sorrow had settled on Aunt Kather¬ 
ine’s features. 

“I don’t think Mother knew anything to tell me,” 
Kate protested. “Why are things difficult for 
Elsie?” 

“If your mother hasn’t told you, she wouldn’t 
want me to. That is certain. But I am surprised 


KATE MEETS A DETECTIVE 99 

she let you come, feeling so. However, since she 
did let you come, and you have no prejudice, Elsie 
has no business to include you in her rages. You 
are the one person in the world she should be friendly 
with and grateful to. And, you know, I am sure 
she exaggerates other people’s attitude, anyway. 
The young people would be friendly enough if she 
would only go halfway.” 

Aunt Katherine put her hand on Kate’s arm and 
continued earnestly: “That is one reason why I 
wanted you to come so much, to help us break the 
ice. Friday I am giving a party in your honour, 
Kate, an informal little dance.” 

Kate clasped her hands. For a minute she forgot 
all the mystery that had gone before in her aunt’s 
speech. 

“A dance! Oh, Aunt Katherine, how beautiful 
of you!” To herself she added, “Glory, glory! 
Already things are beginning to happen just as 
Mother said they would.” 

“I have asked fifteen boys and thirteen girls. 
They have all , every one , accepted! If that doesn’t 
prove how mistaken Elsie is, I am a very foolish 
woman.” 

“Elsie hasn’t mentioned the party to me,” Kate 
wondered aloud. 

“No. I haven’t told her anything about it yet. 
I wanted you here and established first. I hoped 
that once you and she were having a happy, gay time 
together, she would soften, feel more in the mood. 


100 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


Most of the young people I have asked she had met 
when visiting me during school vacations. She was 
very popular with them before—well, before. But 
there are a few new families who have come to 
Oakdale since—well, since.” 

“Before what? Since what?” If it was rude of 
Kate, she could not help it. It was all too mystify¬ 
ing. 

“But that’s just what I can’t tell you, since Kath¬ 
erine hasn’t. Only, your not knowing makes it a 
bit complicated. No, I’m not sure of that. It 
may make everything more simple, more natural. 
But tell me, can’t you be friends with Elsie? She 
needs your friendship and companionship more than 
you can guess, my dear.” 

“I’m sorry. Perhaps we shall be friends yet. But 
she does act awfully queer. Oh, it’s mean of me to 
talk about her so. Perhaps I’ve done something. 
Perhaps there’s a reason.” 

“Well, she’s a strange child. Strange! But she 
used to be different. I always thought she seemed 
a little lost and lonely, you know. That was mostly 
because of her mother—no mother at all, in reality. 
Just a butterfly. In spite of that Elsie was agreeable 
and tender once. Quite a dear. But since she has 
come to live with me she has been entirely a changed 
person. You must believe, though, Kate, that there 
is no more reason for her to be unfriendly toward 
you than there is for her to be unfriendly toward 
me. And I am speaking truly when I say there has 


KATE MEETS A DETECTIVE 


IOI 


hardly been a friendly moment between us since 
she came into my home. She is polite, beautifully 
polite. I suppose that absurd fashionable boarding 
school she was sent to taught her manners. But it 
goes no deeper. How do you feel about it? Is there 
anything unkind or wrong in the way I treat Elsie? 
Have you noticed anything in the brief time you 
have been here?” 

Kate was amazed to have Aunt Katherine so 
appealing to her. All barriers were down between 
them. They were talking as two girls might, or 
two women. 

“Nothing unkind, of course! I don't know how 
you could be kinder. But, Aunt Katherine, do you 
truly like Elsie? It may be that she feels, in spite 
of your kindness, that you just don't like her.” 

“Does it seem that way to you?” 

“No—perhaps not. But there is something in 
your voice when you speak to her—a difference. 
I don't know how to express it. If you truly don't 
like her, perhaps you can't help showing it a little.” 

Aunt Katherine said no more for a while. But 
she was thinking. “It's queer,” she said finally, 
“very queer, the way I am talking to you. I am 
treating you as though you were your mother almost. 
And you are like your mother, in deep ways. Only 
you are franker, more open. You say right out the 
things that she might think but wouldn't say. 
Well, and since I am saying things right out, too— 
I don't like Elsie. You are right there. I tried to. 


102 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 

But I simply couldn’t. She is too unnatural, too 
cold and heartless, and perhaps self-seeking. The 
irony of it is that she is all I have left to love, the only 
person in the world who needs me now—or, rather, 
the only person who will let herself use me. But I 
can’t like her.” 

Kate was embarrassed at this revelation, and at 
the same time deeply sorry for her aunt. For the 
present the subject dropped between them. 

In Boston Kate looked about her with the greatest 
interest as the car crept through the crowded busi¬ 
ness section. She had been in Boston before on brief 
holiday visits with her mother, stopping at little 
boarding houses, and spending most of the time in 
art galleries or the Museum or on trolley rides to 
places of historical interest. But now she was seeing 
it from a new angle, leisurely and in comfort. There 
was no jostling, no hurrying, no aching feet. 

They drew up to a curb in Boylston Street. Tim¬ 
othy got out and came around for orders. “Go up 
and ask Mr. O’Brien to come down to the car, 
Timothy. Tell him I have only a minute.” 

Almost at once a spruce, energetic-looking young 
man stood at the car door, his straw hat in his 
hand. 

“Wouldn’t it be better to have our interview, no 
matter how brief, in my office, Miss Frazier?” he 
suggested deferentially. 

Miss Frazier shook her head with decision. “No. 


KATE MEETS A DETECTIVE 


103 

I just want to ask you one question. Is there any 
news r 

Mr. O’Brien glanced toward Kate significantly. 

“This is my niece,” Miss Frazier informed him 
but not at all in the way of an introduction. “Tell 
me, have you the slightest news?” 

“Nothing that is very certain. We have a new 
clue, perhaps. But I cannot go into that before 
your niece, Miss Frazier.” 

“Oh, this is not Elsie. It’s another niece, a blood 
relation. And I do not intend to climb those stairs 
to your office. You can surely give me some hint.” 

“There is an elevator. You forget.” 

“No matter. I am not going up. Be quick, 
please. Naturally, I am impatient.” 

Kate was certainly catching a glimpse now of the 
bossy Aunt Katherine of tradition. 

“Well, we just have an idea. We should like to 
know whether your other niece, Miss Elsie, ever comes 
into Boston alone. Has she been in this week, say?” 

“Why, no. Certainly not. Bertha, her maid, is 
with her when I am not. She is a chaperon as well 
as a maid. I trust her. She happens to be a very 
remarkable woman for a servant.” 

“Miss Elsie does come in, then, without you 
sometimes? Is she planning to come soon again?” 

“Why, yes. But what this has to do with the 
business I can’t see. I’m sending her in to-morrow 
with her maid and Miss Kate to buy party frocks 
and see ‘The Blue Bird.’” 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


104 

“ Excellent!” Mr. O’Brien seemed much pleased, 
“Will they go directly to the store?” 

“Yes, Pearl’s.. A modiste on Beacon Street.” 

“Very good. May I have one word in your ear?” 

“I see no reason.” But Miss Frazier leaned a 
little toward the insistent young man while he 
lowered his voice so that Kate did not catch one 
word of what he said. 

Her aunt laughed, amused apparently. “Much 
good that will do you. I have told you, Mr. O’Brien, 
there is not a chance in the world that Miss Elsie 
knows any more than we do.” 

“However, you do not object?” 

“No. Except that it is a foolish waste of time.” 

“We shall not lose time through it, I assure you. 
Other members of my staff are working on other 
clues. Precious few there are, though.” 

“If that is all I will say ‘good afternoon,’ then.” 
Miss Frazier settled back in her seat. “You will 
call me up, of course, the minute there is anything 
definite.” 

“Of course. But does Miss Elsie often answer the 
telephone?” 

“Sometimes. Very seldom. I tell you, Mr. 
O’Brien, there is no rhyme or reason to your sus¬ 
picions in that direction.” 

“Even so, Miss Frazier, I beg you to adjure Miss 
Kate here to secrecy. She should, on no condition, 
tell Miss Elsie one word she has heard.” 

Miss Frazier nodded, glancing at Kate. Kate’s 


KATE MEETS A DETECTIVE 105 

return look carried her promise. “I shall hope for 
something more definite when next I hear from you, 
Mr. O’Brien. Good afternoon. Home, Timothy.” 

Mr. O’Brien stood on the curb while the big car 
pulled out. There was a troubled, displeased ex¬ 
pression on his face, Kate thought. She knew that 
he resented very much the interview not having 
been more private. 

“Is he a detective?” she asked her aunt curiously. 

“Yes, a private detective, and a very good one. 
But perhaps he is right, Kate, and you had better 
forget all about him. If he is doing the job I suppose 
he has a right to do it in his own way.” 

A private detective! And what had a detective 
to suspect of Elsie! But Kate took her aunt’s hint 
and asked no more questions. 

Their way home took them by the Green Shutter 
Tea Room, a quaint little place built by a stream in 
a grove of maples. The tables were set out under 
the trees. Aunt Katherine suggested that they 
stop. And when they were seated opposite each 
other at a little round green table, their order given, 
they smiled at each other contentedly, like friends 
of long standing. 


CHAPTER IX 


SOMETHING OF FAIRY IN IT 


OU haven’t told me a word about how you like 



A the orchard house!” Aunt Katherine said. 
“Did you go all over it? The study is really the 
nicest room. Did you like that? And did you see 
your mother’s old playroom?” 

Kate hesitated to confess to her aunt that she had 
not been near the orchard house. It might involve 
Elsie too much. She remembered Elsie’s plea last 
night. So she hesitated, feeling her cheeks redden. 
But after an instant she said, “I think I shall save 
it for a day when there isn’t so much to do. It’s a 
darling house, but I haven’t been in.” 

“After the party on Thursday I am hoping that 
all your days here will be full of things to do, yours 
and Elsie’s, too. She will begin to have the life of 
other girls again. For myself I have hardly cared a 
bit. I had rather grown away from my old friends, 
anyway, and larger interests, or at least more im¬ 
personal interests, have been absorbing me of late 
years. But now I’m pocketing my pride for Elsie’s 
sake, and going more than halfway toward recon¬ 
ciliations. . . . Madame Pearl, the woman to 

whom I am sending you to-morrow for frocks, is an 


SOMETHING OF FAIRY IN IT 107 

artist in her way. You two girls must choose dresses 
that not only become yourselves but go well to¬ 
gether.” 

For Kate all the puzzling hints that ran through her 
aunt’s conversation were forgotten in this new sub¬ 
ject. “But Mother and I thought my pink or¬ 
gandie would do for a party, if you gave one. You 
haven’t seen it. I shall wear it for dinner to-night.” 

“No, I haven’t seen it, but I am sure it is very 
dainty and pretty. Even so, this is to be Elsie’s first 
real party, and her first real party frock. And it 
will be more appropriate for you to have dresses 
that match in a way, or contrast with each other 
artistically. You will let me give you such a gift, 
won’t you, Kate?” 

There was surprising entreaty in Aunt Katherine’s 
dark eyes, and fear, too. Would Kate be simply an 
echo of her mother? Would she rise up in pride and 
say, “No charity, thanks”? 

Meanwhile, Kate was thinking rapidly. She had 
no idea whatever whether her mother would want 
her to accept a party frock from Aunt Katherine or 
not. But quickly she decided that her mother would 
want her to speak for herself now, that this was a 
matter between herself and her aunt. 

“Of course I shall love to have a party dress,” 
she exclaimed. “Oh, but you are good to me, Aunt 
Katherine! And it will be my first as well as 
Elsie’s.” 

Miss Frazier flushed, pleasure all out of proportion 


108 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

to the event, seemingly, shining from her eyes. 
She said “Thank you, my dear,” in as heartfelt ac¬ 
cents as though Kate herself were the donor. 

Kate laughed at that, her eyes crinkling, and 
after the laugh her mouth still stayed tilted up at 
the corners. “Oh, I’m so excited,” she exclaimed. 
“ But aren’t you going to Boston with us, to Madame 
Pearl’s, to help us choose?” 

“No, I think not. Bertha has excellent taste, and 
Madame Pearl herself would not make a mistake. And 
I think that the more I am out of it the better the 
chance is that you and Elsie will find each other. 
A day together, shopping, lunching at my club, and 
seeing ‘The Blue Bird’ afterward ought to give two 
girls all the opportunity they need to get over any 
strangeness.” 

“‘The Blue Bird’! Well, it’s just as Mother said 
it would be, wonderful things galore! Oh, dear! 
I wish she could know this minute that I’m to see 
‘The Blue Bird’! We’ve read it, of course. But to 
see it! I shall write her again to-night—and the 
boys, too.” 

Kate was sitting with clasped hands, her hazel 
eyes narrowed and golden with light. She was al¬ 
most little-girlish in her excitement and pleasure, and 
of course the corners of her mouth were uptilted at 
their most winged angle. Aunt Katherine, watching 
her, thought, “She is better than pretty, this grand¬ 
niece of mine. She is fascinating. Just to look at 
her stirs your imagination.” 


SOMETHING OF FAIRY IN IT 


109 

But she said, ‘‘Eat your toast before it is cold, I ad¬ 
vise you. And don’t neglect the marmalade. It 
is unusually good marmalade they serve here at the 
Green Shutter.” 

And so Kate came to earth. “But such a nice 
earth!” she said to herself. 

Before they had finished their tea. Aunt Katherine 
rose to a pitch of confidences that surprised herself. 
But it was just exactly as though in Kate she had 
found a friend, a friend to whom she was able to open 
her heart. At this moment in her life Miss Frazier 
needed this sort of a confidante badly. They were 
talking about Elsie again and her coldness and in¬ 
difference to Kate. 

“There is one obvious explanation for it,” Aunt 
Katherine said. “I can think of no other. She 
may be jealous. She may have been jealous from the 
first minute of your arrival.” 

Kate was too surprised to think at all. “Jealous 
—of me? Why?” 

“That you might take her place with me, cheat 
her somehow of what she apparently considers hers. 
She sees, as you have guessed, that I do not like her. 
May she not be all the more jealous of you just be¬ 
cause of that?” 

“Oh, no, no, no.” Kate was thinking clearly again. 
“She isn’t horrid like that. I know it. She’s too 
beautiful and lovely. There’s something about her 
that makes any such idea just impossible. She 
mayn’t like me, and I may be cross with her, but for 


no 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 

all that—for all that I know she’s not a mean person, 
Aunt Katherine.” 

Kate was amazed herself at having so suddenly be¬ 
come Elsie’s champion. Loyalty to that strange girl 
had apparently been born in her all in a second. Or 
was it loyalty only to the comrade she had glimpsed 
dashingly, once in the mirror last night, and once in 
sunshine this morning? Whatever it was to, it was 
very real and staunch. 

Aunt Katherine’s face lightened remarkably. 
“You may be right, and I earnestly hope you are,” 
she said. “For if Elsie were unfriendly toward you 
for any such reason—well, it would be the last straw, 
the very last.” 

As they spun along toward home through the cool¬ 
ing air, Miss Frazier’s expression grew happier and 
happier. Kate had done for her what she could not 
do for herself: lightened real suspicions, and eased her 
heart. 

It was almost dinner time when they arrived. If 
Kate was to don her pink organdie she would have to 
hurry. She raced up the stairs and found Bertha in 
her room waiting for her. 

“You have only ten minutes, Miss Kate,” she 
warned. “Your bath is set.” 

A glance showed Kate the pink organdie freshly 
pressed, crisp and cool, hung over a chair back, and 
the white slip to go under it on the bed. Her pumps 
were set down by the dressing table and some fresh 
stockings near on a stool. Two baths a day! How 


Ill 


SOMETHING OF FAIRY IN IT 

comfortable! Kate, still aglow with her afternoon, 
had quite forgotten her self-consciousness with this 
lady's maid. 

“Has Miss Elsie dressed?" she asked. 

Bertha answered rather worriedly: “No, and 
none of us have seen her all afternoon. I do wish 
she would come up. I can't think how she's been 
amusing herself, or where." 

Kate herself began to wonder, when she had had 
her bath and was freshly dressed. “There's the 
gong!" she exclaimed. 

But simultaneously with the note of the gong 
Elsie's door slammed and there she was in the bath¬ 
room door. 

“I'm late," she called, but not at all ruefully. 
“No time to dress, Bertha. Hello, Kate." 

“You’ll have to wash your face, whether there's 
time or not," Bertha assured her. “And your hair, 
it's a sight! Where did you get like that?" 

Elsie laughed, elfin laughter. “Never mind where. 
And you aren’t my nurse. You're my tiring-woman. 
Bear that in mind, Mrs. Bertha." 

Bertha's worried face changed into a beaming one. 
Elsie in such good spirits! That was the best that 
Bertha asked of life, Kate intuitively felt. 

But it was true enough. Elsie very much needed 
washing and brushing. Her nose and forehead were 
beaded with little drops of perspiration, her cheeks 
were a burning red, as though she had been sitting 
over a fire, or perhaps long in the sun, and there were 


112 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 

smudges of what looked like flour on chin and arms. 
As for her hair, it was all in little damp curls across 
her brow and over her ears: one side had come com¬ 
pletely undone, and showered down on to her 
shoulder. 

“I can’t for the life of me see how you ever got 
in such a mess,” Bertha murmured happily as she 
officiated in Elsie’s hurried cleaning up. “You might 
just as well be a cook in a kitchen! But, oh, dear! 
What’s that burn?” 

“It is horrid, isn’t it?” Elsie agreed. 

“Well, I think you need a nurse more than a lady’s 
maid! Did Julia let you get near the stove on this 
broiling day? Here’s some olive oil.” 

After another minute of scurrying Elsie appeared 
in Kate’s door. “It was nice of you to wait for me,” 
she said. “But I’m afraid I’ve made you late.” 

Aunt Katherine lifted her brows when she saw 
Elsie still in her blue and white morning dress. But 
the fact that the girls had come in together, actually 
arm-in-arm, made up for much. In fact, it put Aunt 
Katherine into a light and gay mood. Things were 
beginning to go as she had planned now. At dinner 
she told Elsie about the party set for Friday night. 
And Elsie, who herself was in a gay spirit, thanked 
her aunt prettily for everything—the coming party, 
the promised frock, and the seats for “The Blue 
Bird.” 

“Why, she is a human being, after all,” Kate ad¬ 
mitted. “This morning and last night seems like 


SOMETHING OF FAIRY IN IT 113 

some dream I had about her/' And Kate opened her 
hazel eyes a little wider now as she looked at Elsie 
across the table. She was on the watch for the 
reappearance of the vanishing comrade. 

That evening again Miss Frazier sent the girls to 
walk in the garden. She herself settled down in the 
big winged chair under her especial reading lamp and 
picked up “The King of the Fairies/’ which Kate 
had not forgotten to place there. 

The orchard drew all Kate’s attention once they 
were out in the growing starlight. She looked to¬ 
ward it often as they paced back and forth on the 
garden paths. At first she talked to Elsie about her 
afternoon, the ride, and the Green Shutter Tea 
Room. But Elsie, though she listened with interest, 
and even took pains to ask questions, in return gave 
Kate no information as to how she had spent the 
hours. Even so, Elsie was so completely changed 
that finally Kate had the hardihood to tell her laugh¬ 
ingly about the light she had seen in the orchard 
house last night before falling to sleep. 

“I am sure I saw the light. But of course I 
couldn’t have heard the door,” she finished. “That 
must have been imagination, for sound doesn’t carry 
like that.” 

But at this mention of the orchard house Elsie’s 
new manner fell from her as though she had dropped 
a cloak. She stiffened as they walked and her voice 
took on restraint. 

“If you imagined the sound of the door, why wasn’t 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


114 

the light imagination, too?” she asked reasonably. 
“Or it may have been fireflies in the trees. See them 
now.” 

It was true enough. Over in the orchard fireflies 
were twinkling, almost in clouds. 

“It wasn’t like firefly light, just the same.” 

“Well, you were almost asleep, weren’t you? It 
was probably fireflies and sleepiness all mixed up.” 

Kate did not acknowledge that she was impressed 
by this reasoning. But deep in her mind she was. 

“And you’re not to tell Aunt Katherine about the 
light. Promise me that. She would go investigat¬ 
ing then. You’ve got to promise.” 

Kate’s quick temper flashed up and ruined the new 
relation between them at Elsie’s brusque command. 

“I haven’t got to promise. Why do you think 
you can boss me like that?” 

Elsie’s answer to that was a tossed head. “I’m 
going in,” she said shortly. 

“/’m not.” Kate sat down abruptly in a garden 
chair they were passing. When Elsie had gone on 
Kate bit her lip, hard, hard to keep back the tears. 
“Now I’ve spoiled everything,” she accused herself 
bitterly. “Why did I have to go talking about the 
orchard house at all? Everything was so jolly, so 
right at last! Elsie was beginning to be more than 
decent. What an idiot I am!” 

She leaned her head down upon the arm of the 
chair. Then the inner, more tranquil Kate came 
forward. “Think about the King of the Fairies,” 


SOMETHING OF FAIRY IN IT 1x5 

she said. “Look as he looked, see as he saw. Per¬ 
haps if you do, all this trouble will dissolve in light. 
Get above the quarrel.” 

And as she sat curled up there, she tried hard to 
follow the inner Kate’s directions. She tried to look 
at the orchard with the different seeing. If she 
followed the King of the Fairies’ directions, mightn’t 
she see the all of things as the girl and boy on the 
fence had seen the all? She stayed very still, and 
watched, expectantly. 

Elsie came back to her, silent as a shadow. It was 
almost as though she could read Kate’s thoughts; for 
she knelt down by her on the dewy grass, and putting 
her face quite close to Kate’s said in a low voice, but 
earnestly: “I’ll tell you this much, Kate Marshall, 
there is something fairyish about that little orchard 
house. If things fairyish show to you around it or 
in it, it is because they are there. This is no lie. I 
cross my heart. But you aren’t wanted there. And 
unless you are very mean you will keep your promise 
to me and not go near.” 

Then Elsie floated away, and was lost to Kate in 
the garden shadows, like a fairyish thing herself. 

Kate started up. Had she dreamed Elsie’s coming 
back, and her words? She had been in such a 
different state of mind trying to see as the King of the 
Fairies saw, that she hardly knew. Anyway, big 
girl of fifteen that she was, she began looking again 
toward the orchard house with deepened expectancy. 


CHAPTER X 


IN THE MIRROR 

TF ELSIE had thought to tease or bewilder Kate in 
the garden last night by asserting that fairies 
actually had something to do with the orchard house 
she would have been disappointed now if she could 
read Kate’s mind as she lay awake in the early 
morning. A sense of something exciting in the day 
had waked her before dawn. The excitement, of 
course, was the party frock that Aunt Katherine had 
promised her, and “The Blue Bird.” 

“I can hardly believe that I am going to have such 
a wonderful day,” she thought. “Is it really hap¬ 
pening to me? Will the morning ever come?” 

She had no idea what time it was but she could see 
that the sky was beginning to lighten. She felt that 
she could never go to sleep again and she felt very 
hungry. Ah-ha! She remembered the gingerbread 
man under her pillow. She had put it there simply 
to hide it and meaning to get rid of it somehow with¬ 
out Elsie or Bertha seeing. She had not thought she 
would ever want to eat it! It was too childish. But 
now she pulled it out, and leaning up on her elbow 
ate every last crumb. 

This elbow position brought the orchard into her 


IN THE MIRROR 


n 7 

view, or rather its growing outlines in the approach¬ 
ing dawn. She recalled last night and Elsie’s emphat¬ 
ic assurance that fairies somehow had a hand in the 
mystery. Perhaps most other girls of fifteen would 
simply have laughed at Elsie and not for an instant 
accepted it as a possibility, fairies not entering into 
their scheme of things. But fairies did enter into 
Kate’s scheme of things and always had. There she 
was different. But there was a reason for her 
difference. 

When she was a little girl of seven she had seen 
what she thought was a fairy; and it had made such 
an impression on her mind that when she grew older 
and came to the age of doubt she simply went on 
knowing. She had seen what she had seen, and that 
was all there was to it. Moreover, her mother had 
seen it, too, or something like it. It was hardly 
likely that both of them could have been utterly 
deceived. 

It happened when she and Katherine had gone for 
a walk on a June Saturday. They started very early 
in the morning and walked very far, for a seven-year- 
old. But it was Saturday and they were both free, 
Kate from the lessons which her mother set her, and 
Katherine from teaching. And it was June. So 
they did not seem to get tired a bit, but walked and 
walked, and explored. Toward noon they came to 
a high meadow hilltop. There they lay down, flat 
on their backs among the Queen Anne’s lace, butter¬ 
cups, and daisies, their arms across their eyes, their 





118 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

faces turned directly up toward the sun. It was 
luncheon time, but they did not care. The sunshine 
soaking into them and the smell of warm grass and 
earth were better than food. 

They lay still for a long time, not even speaking 
to each other. Perhaps the little Kate slept. And 
they thought of getting up and starting for home 
only when the sun in the sky told Katherine that 
it must be past two o’clock. 

Halfway down the hill pasture stood a little beach 
wood. They took their way through that because it 
looked so cool and inviting, and because Katherine 
knew there was a spring there among some rocks 
where they could get long, satisfying drinks of cold 
water. It was there they saw the fairy. They saw 
her just as they came out of the bright sunlight into 
the green, cool shade of the wood and stood above the 
water. She was at the other side of the spring facing 
them. She was looking down at her reflection in the 
water, not at all aware of their approach. 

Kate saw her as a lovely girl in a floating green 
garment. Her feet and arms were bare and shining 
and it was their shining that made Kate know, even 
in that first instant before the fairy had glanced up, 
that she was unearthly. Kate and Katherine stood 
as still as the leaves on the trees in that still wood, 
awed and entranced. Then the little Kate whispered 
“ Mother!” and pointed. At that whisper the fairy 
lifted her eyes. Kate saw the surprise in her eyes 
and a dawning—something; was it friendliness, or a 


IN THE MIRROR 119 

smile? There was not time to know; for the fairy 
flashed backward and up on to a stone behind her 
across which the sunlight fell. And there she was lost 
in the sunlight. They simply could not see her any 
more. 

But Kate had never forgotten that instant when 
they stood looking at the fairy while she was plain to 
view. And she had never forgotten the expression 
on her mother’s face after the fairy had vanished. 
It was such a delighted expression, so startlingly 
satisfied. 

But that night, in talking it over, it came out that 
mother and daughter had not seen exactly the same 
thing. Katherine was sure that the being who had 
stood looking down at the spring was taller than 
human, grander, with a more tranquil, noble face. 
And her garment, she said, was the colour of sun¬ 
light, not green at all. Little Kate protested that. 
No, she was just a slim girl and her garment was 
green. Why, Kate remembered exactly how it hung 
almost to her bare ankles, without fluttering or 
motion in that still wood. The golden gown Kath¬ 
erine had seen had blown back, she said, as in a 
strong wind, although she herself felt no breath of air. 

The end of their discussion came to this. Kather¬ 
ine said it might be that the sun in the high meadow 
together with their having had no luncheon had made 
them see not quite true. When they came suddenly 
into the cool, green shaded wood out of the glare their 
eyes played them tricks. What seemed like a person 


120 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


standing above the spring may have been simply an 
effect of sunlight striking through leaves. 

“You remember, don’t you,” Katherine had ended, 
“how she vanished into sunlight when you said 
‘Mother’? Well-” 

And Katherine had left it at that. “Well-” 

But she had warned little Kate not to talk about it. 

“People will think I had no business letting you go 
without luncheon so,” she gave as her reason, laugh¬ 
ingly. 

But just because she had promised Katherine that 
she would not talk about having seen a fairy, Kate 
had thought about it all the more. And she never 
went into a cool wood out of hot sunlight without 
hoping to surprise a fairy again. What she had 
seen she had seen, and that was all there was to it! 

So now to Kate the thought that fairies might some¬ 
how be connected with the little orchard house did 
not seem at all an impossibility. Elsie certainly 
had not acted or looked as though she were lying. 
And it was perfectly true that from the minute Kate 
herself had first caught sight of the orchard house 
she had felt that there was something very special 
about it—more special than just the fact that it was 
the house where her mother had been born and grown 
up and married. When Elsie called out “Fairies, 
beware! Orchard House, beware!” Kate had been 
pricked with the feeling of listening ears. She had 
felt somehow that the warning was truly heard and 
taken. 



121 


IN THE MIRROR 

She stretched now to her full length between her 
scented sheets. “I do wish the dawn would hurry 
up and dawn!” she thought. “The minute it’s a bit 
light enough I’ll get up, take a cold bath, dress, and 
get out into the orchard. If fairies are there, dawn 
ought to be as easy a time to see them as any. I’ll 
keep my promise about the key. But I’ve a perfect 
right in the orchard.” 

She fell asleep then and dreamed about the orchard 
house. The King of the Fairies was there, waiting 
for her on the doorstep. She sat down beside him 
and at once began to see things different, to see them, 
as the King of the Fairies said, “whole.” There was 
a lot to the dream—colour, adventure, and music, 
and above all, the sight of things “whole.” But 
Kate, when she woke, had quite lost it. The dream 
had become just tag ends of brightness left floating 
in her mind. 

To her surprise morning was fully established, 
birds were singing in high chorus, and water was run¬ 
ning loudly into the tub! 

Bertha appeared in the bathroom door. “Miss 
Elsie got ahead of us,” she informed Kate brightly. 
“She must have been quieter than a mouse to have 
had her bath and all and not waked you. Now I 
suppose she’s out in the orchard or somewhere. It’s 
a beautiful day.” 

Oh, well, Kate did not allow herself to be downcast 
at having missed dawn in the orchard. Not a bit of 


122 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


it. What a day it was to be! The frock, “The 
Blue Bird/’ the whole day in Boston with Elsie, and 
Aunt Katherine so friendly! 

At her place at the little breakfast table under the 
peach tree she found a letter from her mother. She 
snatched it up and tore it open, hoping she could get 
at least the heart out of it before Aunt Katherine and 
Elsie should appear. 

But she had hardly read the first sentence before 
Miss Frazier came out through the breakfast-room 
and Elsie floated from the direction of the orchard. 
Kate was too absorbed to be aware of the approach 
of either until she heard Elsie exclaim, “Letters! 
Oh, is there one for me?” 

Aunt Katherine’s tone was surprisingly sharp when 
she answered, “You never get letters, Elsie. You 
have hardly had one in the last year.” 

“That’s unfair,” Kate thought hotly. “Aunt 
thinks she’s jealous even of my mail. And all the 
time she’s probably expecting an answer to that 
special delivery she sent yesterday.” 

But in spite of the edge in Miss Frazier’s voice 
Elsie apparently was not at all dashed. To Kate’s 
curious eyes she looked just exactly as one might 
who had been skylarking with fairies in the orchard 
all early morning. She was ready to laugh, ready 
to talk, ready to be friendly. Kate was profoundly 
glad, for this kind of an Elsie argued well for the day 
they were to have in Boston together. 

They went by train because Miss Frazier herself 


IN THE MIRROR 


123 

had uses for the car. Bertha was again dressed in 
her correct gray tailored suit. “Looking like an aunt 
herself/’ Kate thought. Kate wore the blue silk 
dress she had travelled in and the smart little hat 
that was really her mother’s. The white linen 
would have done beautifully if they had not been 
going to the theatre; but even though they were to 
sit in the balcony—seats were sold out so far ahead 
that this was the best Aunt Katherine had been able 
to do for them—Kate thought the white linen would 
hardly be appropriate for that, and Bertha had 
agreed with her. Elsie, when she appeared, quite 
took Kate’s breath away. She was so lovely, but so 
much older looking than she had been in her house 
clothes. She was dressed in a straight little three- 
piece silk suit of olive green. The rolling collar was 
tied by a jaunty orange bow, and on the low belt of 
the dress the same colour was embroidered in a con¬ 
ventional flower pattern. The coat hung loosely 
and very full, hooked together only at the collar. 
The hat was a limp dark brown straw with olive- 
green and orange embroidery all around the crown. 
Elsie had pinned her curls up over her ears, and her 
hair was a soft crushed aura under the hat. She 
looked very much like a city girl but as though the 
city might have been New York or Paris rather than 
Boston. 

Kate gasped a little, and in her secret heart was 
very glad she herself had decided on her silk. For a 
little while she was constrained with Elsie, as though 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


124 

Elsie had in fact become older suddenly just because 
she looked older. 

As they came through the gates at their terminal in 
Boston Kate noticed a young man in a slouch brown 
hat, a polka-dotted brown tie, and very shining pointed 
brown shoes, standing about as though expecting 
someone to meet him from the train on which they 
had come in. Perhaps Kate noticed him so particu¬ 
larly because he seemed to be noticing them so par¬ 
ticularly, especially Elsie. For the first time that 
morning she remembered Mr. O’Brien, the detective. 
Was this one of his men, and was he going to “ sha¬ 
dow” them to-day? Kate was sure of it when out of 
the tail of her eye she saw him wheel and follow at a 
little distance as they moved toward the taxi stand. 
He stood prepared to take the next cab that should 
move into position as theirs moved out. Kate hardly 
understood her own emotions at that moment. Her 
cheeks were hot and her knees shook a little. She 
was resentful for Elsie. Why was she being sha¬ 
dowed by a detective as though she were a criminal ? 
Why had Aunt Katherine let this happen? 

Madame Pearl’s establishment was a narrow 
three-story house on Beacon Street. “Madame 
Pearl” was engraved on a plate above the bell, noth¬ 
ing more. A daintily capped and aproned maid 
answered their ring. She knew their names before 
they had given them. 

“It is the Misses Frazier,” she said, speaking with a 
distinct accent. “You have an engagement, and 


IN THE MIRROR 


125 

Madame Pearl is expecting. Please come this 
way.” 

The front door opened directly into a long narrow 
room, panelled in ivory, decorated with wreathed 
cupids and flowers. The floor was cool gray and the 
hangings at the long windows at the end of the room 
were gray, too, silvery. But under their feet were 
warm-coloured Persian rugs of the most beautiful 
shades and designs. There were little tables in the 
room with magazines and books scattered on them, 
a few easy chairs, and two long divans. In one 
corner by the window there was an exquisite little 
writing desk of Italian workmanship. On this stood 
a vase of very red roses. 

Kate glanced about with surprised eyes. But 
Elsie, who had been here before with Aunt Katherine, 
nonchalantly followed the maid who was guiding 
them. Kate had expected to find herself in a shop. 
But there was no evidence of things for sale here. 
And they had an appointment! Whoever heard of 
having an appointment in a shop ? 

The maid stood back at the foot of a narrow spiral 
staircase at the back of the room. The girls and 
Bertha ascended. 

Still no sign of a shop, or dresses for sale. This 
long upper room was simply a boudoir with chaises- 
longues, mirrors, and flowers. Madame Pearl swept 
to meet them. She was a regal little lady in trailing 
gray chiffon. The gown had long flowing sleeves 
that just escaped the floor. Miss Frazier had told 


126 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


Kate at breakfast that morning that Madame Pearl 
was really a Russian princess who had escaped at the 
time of the Revolution and in just a few years had 
made a fortune with this shop. Her real name was 
Olga Schwankovsky. So Kate looked at her with 
intense curiosity now. But where was the shop ? 

“Miss Frazier has telephoned/’ Madame Pearl 
said in the sweetest of voices and almost perfect 
accent. “You young ladies are to have party 
dresses, your first party dresses. Very simple, very 
chic, youthful. We must not hurry but give time to 
it and consideration. If you will be so kind as to 
come this way-” 

“This way” was all down the room to a wider 
alcove, walled on the street by big plate-glass win¬ 
dows and on the two other sides by huge, perfect 
mirrors. 

There Madame Pearl asked them to be seated. 
She herself sat comfortably among cushions on a little 
lounge. She inquired as to their favourite colours. 
From that the conversation expanded to their other 
tastes, to books, music. Elsie told about their plan 
for the afternoon. 

“You are to see ‘The Blue Bird’!” Madame 
Pearl exclaimed. “That will be an experience. I 
myself saw it when I was about your age—its first 
production at the Moscow Art Theatre. I had never 
dreamed anything could be so beautiful. You will 
think so, too.” Then she added, sighing a little, 
“But it cannot be quite the same. Stanislavsky 


IN THE MIRROR 


127 

produced it as it never could be produced by another. 
It was superb.” 

“You saw it, there, when it was given in Moscow 
that first time?” Elsie breathed, sitting on the very 
edge of her chair, her cheeks pink with excitement. 

“ That was wonderful. I know, for my fa-” She 

stopped, bit her lip, and continued: “Someone 
showed me photographs of the stage sets and cos¬ 
tumes once. I am wondering if it will be anything 
like that here.” 

“I don’t know,” Madame Pearl replied. “But I 
tell you frankly I am not going to see. For the 
memory of our Art Theatre production is too vivid 
for me to want to expose it to any comparison. It 
was done with a richness, a depth, a true sense of 

mysticism- What shall I say? It was so free 

of sentimentality. I confess I do not care to see it 
attempted again. It had an effect on me, that 
play. An effect that is lasting, that runs through— 
how shall I say?—my life.” 

Elsie nodded and looked at Kate. She said, “Yes, 
we understand. ‘The King of the Fairies’ is like that, 
too.” 

Kate’s heart leapt. At last those two girls had met 
face to face, comrades on common ground. 

“‘The King of the Fairies,”’ Madame Pearl mur¬ 
mured, reflectively. “Ah, yes. I have heard of that 
book. Published last year. Very beautiful, I have 
heard. And literary people are surprised because it 
is so popular. They alone, when they discovered it, 


128 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

expected to appreciate it and enjoy. They are a 
little annoyed that children and simple people and 
the unliterary love it, too, that it is a ‘best seller.' 
I have guessed, though I have not yet read it, that 
that book must tap some deep wells of truth that all 
humanity knows, even the simple. I have a theory 
about art-” 

There the beautiful voice ceased abruptly. Ma¬ 
dame Pearl rose, smiling enigmatically. “This is 
not choosing frocks, is it?” she said. “But while we 
have chattered I have studied your types. I have 
not been idle. Shall we begin with the one of which 
I am the least sure? That is Miss Kate. We may 
have to try several frocks before we are suited for 
you. But I think we shall begin with an orange 
crepe.” 

Madame Pearl touched a button in the wall and al¬ 
most instantly a maid appeared, not the one who had 
answered the door, but identically dressed. She was 
young and pretty and very quick in all her motions. 
Kate found a screen placed around her almost before 
she knew what was happening. It was a light fold¬ 
ing screen made of gray silk and bamboo and em¬ 
broidered with oriental flowers. Bertha hastened to 
disrobe her. Then she came forth and stood ready 
to try on before one of the huge mirrors. 

Panels in the wall were slid back and the little 
maid brought the dresses from their hiding places one 
by one. Bertha and the little maid slipped them 
over her head, fastened them, turned her around 


IN THE MIRROR 


129 

lightly by the shoulders. Then everyone looked 
at Madame Pearl. She was sitting on her couch 
again, her eyes intent. She studied Kate as an 
artist studies his picture. And to every frock, when 
it was on and Kate had been turned quite around 
once or twice, she shook her head decidedly. None of 
them, not one would do. 

Kate herself could not see why. There was not 
one that was positively unbecoming, and three or 
four had been quite lovely. She was growing dazed 
and tired. The sparkle and colour of the frocks 
heaped about her on chairs and thrown over the 
screen was almost too much for her eyes. She 
thought of the Arabian Nights and imagined herself 
a young princess of Arabia being decked for her 
wedding. But even as the corners of her mouth 
lifted with this dream she was startled by an excla¬ 
mation from Madame Pearl. 

“At last! It is perfect \” 

Kate turned to herself in the mirror. 

But was it Kate Marshall at all? She scarcely 
knew. 

The frock was yellow, of softest satin, the color of a 
crocus. At the rounded neck it was gathered softly 
to a narrow border of tiny pearl-white and blue 
blossoms made in satin. At the low waistline the 
satin was gathered again at a girdle of the same 
exquisitely fashioned flowers, four wreaths of them 
loosely twined. The skirt swung out from this girdle 
very full and straight, stopping just a little above the 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


130 

ankles, quite the longest skirt Kate had ever had. 
The border of the skirt was cut in deep, sharp scallops 
showing an underskirt below of foaming, creamy lace. 

“Do you like it?” Madame Pearl asked, inter¬ 
estedly. Kate was looking at herself without speak¬ 
ing. 

“I couldn’t help liking it,” Kate replied. “It’s 
beautiful. But—it doesn’t look exactly as though 
we belonged—it and I together! It is fluffy! So 
delicate!” 

“That’s the fault of your hair, the short bob,” 
Madame Pearl assured her. “There must be a cap.” 
She gave directions to the maid. “The silver cap 
with the star points. Yes, the one from Riis’s. 
Deep cream stockings. And the pumps—but I see 
you know which pumps that frock must have your¬ 
self. I think they will fit, too. Fetch them.” 

The maid whisked away to return in a minute with 
silk stockings, satin slippers, and a silver cap. 

“Your feet first,” Madame Pearl said, quite ex¬ 
citedly. “The cap we will leave for the finishing 
touch. Then you shall see.” 

Again, almost in a daze, Kate vanished behind the 
painted screen accompanied by both Bertha and 
the maid. Each of them dressed a foot, and it was 
done in a minute. The pumps were an exact fit. 
They were creamy satin embroidered in deeper 
creamy-coloured flowers. At the side of each a 
small diamond-shaped crystal buckle caught the 
light in many facets. The heels were low. 


IN THE MIRROR 


131 

Kate was troubled. “My aunt is only giving me 
the frock,” she said. “She didn’t mention slippers 
and things. I’ve some perfectly good black patent- 
leather pumps, anyway.” 

“Black pumps! With that frock!” 

Madame Pearl gazed at her in horror. Bertha 
hurriedly interposed, “Miss Frazier impressed it on 
me that the costumes were to be complete.” 

Then Madame Pearl arose from the couch and 
herself set the silver cap on Kate’s head. It was a 
saucy affair fashioned in crisp silver lace with five 
star points radiating from its crown. The cap was 
indeed the finishing touch. It accomplished almost 
a transformation. 

“Why, I’m pretty , awfully pretty!” Kate ex¬ 
claimed to herself, gazing into the mirror. But 
then more modestly, she added, “Any one would be 
in that fascinating cap.” 

So Kate was ready for the party! Let it come! 

And now it was Elsie’s turn. But Madame Pearl 
had no trouble in fitting Elsie to just the right frock. 
In fact, she had decided which it must be in the first 
minutes while they sat discussing “The Blue Bird.” 
Elsie was not “difficult.” Madame Pearl whispered 
to the maid, who scurried away. She returned 
bearing over her arm a cloud of green chiffon. While 
Kate was being dressed behind her screen Elsie was 
put into this green creation behind another similar 
screen. She appeared before Kate was done. 

Her frock was simplicity itself, just straight 


132 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

lengths of green chiffon falling straight away from 
her slim shoulders. As she moved back and forth 
in front of the mirror her draperies floated about 
her like filmiest clouds. When she stood still they 
fell straight and sheer almost to her ankles. Madame 
Pearl signalled and the maid took the pins from 
Elsie’s curls and they tumbled, a shower of sunlight. 

The effect was perfect. Madame Pearl breathed 
softly: “I am satisfied. Exquisitely.” She de¬ 
termined that white kid sandals, sandals in the Greek 
style, were the footwear the frock required. She had 
them, too, stored somewhere behind those secret 
panels. The maid hurried off, and Elsie in preparation 
for her return slipped off the black patent-leather 
sandals she was wearing, and out of her stockings. 

At the same time Madame Pearl moved to the big 
windows. “The light is glaring,” she murmured, 
“and it is unreasonably hot.” Untying a cord at 
the side of the sash she let down green inner blinds. 
Elsie rose, and stood in her bare feet facing herself 
meditatively in the mirror. At that instant Kate 
came from behind her screen. 

“Oh!” It was almost a shriek. Kate actually 
reeled against Bertha who was following her and 
clutched for support. Bertha led her to the couch. 
“Water, a glass of cold water quickly,” Madame 
Pearl commanded the little maid. Elsie ran to Kate 
and knelt before her, taking her hands. “Kate, 
Kate,” she called as though Kate were running away 
from her. 


IN THE MIRROR 133 

But Kate was not a girl to faint easily. She 
straightened up now and took a deep breath. “It’s 
only the way you looked in the glass, Elsie,” she 
explained, shakily. “The room just went spinning 
when I saw you.” 

“‘The way she looked in the glass!’” Madame 
Pearl cast a hurried glance toward the big mirror 
that now reflected only Kate’s array of discarded 
dresses, a few tables and chairs. 

But Kate explained further, looking at Elsie 
wanly: “You were the fairy—the fairy that Mother 
and I saw by the pool that day. You were the fairy 
exactly, even the expression on your face when you 
looked at me! And the green light-” 

Madame Pearl laughed. “The green light is only 
because I pulled the blind. But you are right, Miss 
Elsie does look exactly like some fairy, some wood 
fairy. Perfection.” 

“No, not some fairy, the fairy. I have remembered 
perfectly.” 

Madame Pearl spoke to Bertha aside, but Kate 
heard well enough. “It was the heat, and she 
was tired from trying on. She ought to lie 
down.” Then she turned her attention to Elsie’s 
sandals. 

But Elsie kept looking back over her shoulder at 
Kate, resting on the sofa—questioningly. She was 
speculating: “Had Kate taken her hint of fairies 
in the orchard house seriously? Was it so much on 
her mind that she was imagining things? Or had 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


134 

Kate once really seen a fairy, and Elsie in the mirror 
had reminded her? 

When they left the shop and stood on the step 
looking about for a taxi Elsie asked Kate eagerly, 
“ Did you really see a fairy once ? Where ? When ? ” 

“Yes, Mother and I. But we both saw it differ¬ 
ently. And now—now, how could it have been a 
fairy? Why, it was you . But I promised Mother 
not to talk about it.” 

At the mention of Kate’s mother the cold look 
came back to Elsie’s face. She turned away with 
feigned indifference while Bertha lifted her hand to 
summon a taxi. 


CHAPTER XI 

KATE TAKES THE HELM 

B UT the taxi driver Bertha had signalled shook 
his head, giving a sidewise jerk toward the 
back of his cab to indicate that he had a fare. There 
was the young man of the brown hat and polka- 
dotted tie looking away as though he was not one bit 
aware of them and smoking a cigarette. 

“Well, why do they stand still, then! ,, Bertha 
complained. “How could I know!” 

Almost at once, however, another taxi came 
cruising up the hill, and they were soon in, whirling 
away toward Miss Frazier’s club. It was now al¬ 
most one o’clock, and they were quite ready for 
luncheon. 

Though Kate did not actually lean out to see 
whether the detective’s taxi was following, she felt 
quite sure that it was. “And he’ll be wherever we 
go all day,” she reflected. “What does he expect 
us to do—or Elsie, rather? What could she do with 
Bertha and me along, anyway? It’s all just too 
curious! And I don’t like it a bit. It makes me 
angry for Elsie. It isn’t fair to her! I wonder what 
Mother and the boys would think if they knew I 
was riding around Boston to-day, buying gorgeous 
135 


136 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

clothes, conversing with princesses, almost fainting, 
and being shadowed by a detective! 

Both girls, lunching in Miss Frazier’s club, felt 
themselves quite emancipated, really adult! Elsie 
wrote out their orders on a little pad tendered by a 
gray-clad waitress, and acted hostess throughout. 
Kate very much admired her worldly air, her poise 
and decision, and the way she knew the French names 
for things. Apparently she was quite accustomed 
to such complicated menus. Kate was proud of 
Elsie, proud and stirred. Aunt Katherine herself 
could not have conducted things better. 

They discussed Madame Pearl and her establish¬ 
ment. They were both enchanted by her, and full of 
surmises about her life. Miss Frazier had told them 
that people knew very little about Madame Pearl’s 
experiences during the Revolution and her escape, 
because she meant to keep out of the papers. That 
was why she had taken the name Madame Pearl, and 
did not want to be known as a princess at all, except 
to a few trusted customers, or rather patients. 

“She prescribes clothes just as a doctor prescribes 
pills, Aunt Katherine says,” Elsie remarked, laugh¬ 
ing. 

“I think my dress is too wonderful,” Kate sighed. 
“But do you know I am afraid Mother won’t want 
me to wear it to high-school dances next winter, if I 
go to any. She will say it’s too grand, I’m sure.” 

In time, however, they left the topic of clothes and 
launched into discussion of “The Blue Bird.” Both 


KATE TAKES THE HELM 137 

had read it, but in quite different ways. Kate had 
read for the story, and Elsie to fit it to the photo¬ 
graphs she had seen of its first production in Moscow. 
In fact, this was typical of these two girls. They had 
enthusiasm for the same things, but approached 
them from different angles. That was why, when 
they found themselves talking freely, the air fairly 
sparkled between them. They opened new avenues 
of thought to each other, took each other’s old ideas 
and spun them like balls, showing new sides and 
colours. They were animated. They leaned to¬ 
ward each other over the table, their faces alive and 
bright with thinking. Bertha remained mostly 
silent, enjoying her luncheon and the interested and 
appreciative glances that were turned from every 
direction upon her charges. 

Luncheon went on slow feet because of conver¬ 
sation’s wings. But they did not in any way neglect 
it. It was a most delicious meal, and quite a compli¬ 
cated one, because Miss Frazier had given Elsie carte 
blanche and told her to make it just as splendid as 
she pleased. After the ice they had a demitasse. 
Neither of the girls was accustomed to coffee, but 
this was a special day and they would do special 
things. Besides, the waitress seemed to expect it 
of them. It tasted horrible. But each made a 
brave effort and drank down the tiny portion without 
grimacing. 

Now for the theatre! 

At the door of the club a footman summoned a 


138 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

taxi for them. As Kate went down the steps and 
got in she looked all about for signs of the detective 
but saw none. However, they were in a crowded 
section, taxis and autos moving in two rivers, one 
north, one south, and the sidewalks were two more 
rivers—rivers of human beings. That polka-dotted 
young man might well have his eye on them from 
some station in that flow of life and Kate never be 
aware. 

Elsie had the theatre tickets in her purse, and took 
them out now to be sure about them. “They’re in 
the third row in the first balcony,” she said. “Aunt 
Katherine thought they weren’t very good, but I 
am sure they are. Why, it will be even better than 
as though we were ’way up front downstairs. We 
will get all the effects better. Don’t you think so?” 
But she asked a trifle anxiously, as though trying to 
console herself. 

Kate agreed, though to speak truth she knew very 
little indeed about the theatre and could hardly be 
considered a judge in any way. Both girls were 
glowing with anticipation and excitement. Kate 
felt that it was all simply too wonderful to be true. 
Her heart was almost breaking with happiness—at 
least, that is what she told herself was the matter 
with it. It certainly was pounding. 

But arrived in the palace of gold decoration and 
purple plush which was the theatre, and ushered to 
their seats, there was an unpleasant surprise. One 
of the seats was directly behind a large ornate post! 


KATE TAKES THE HELM 139 

Whoever sat there would have to do a great deal of 
craning and stretching to see the stage at all, and 
not for one instant would she be able to see its 
entirety. 

‘‘Don’t you bother,” Bertha reassured them, con¬ 
cealing her own deep disappointment. “Of course 
I shall sit there. It’s only a pity it’s between you.” 

Now Elsie showed a new side of her character to 
Kate, and a side that she had not suspected. “Don’t 
be silly,” she told Bertha emphatically—but not 
rudely, merely affectionately—“Of course we shall 
take turns. I shall have the post for half the time 
and you the other. But it’s mean, just the same.” 

“And I, too—I shall certainly take my turn,” Kate 
threw in. “But I think it is mean, and a cheat, too!” 

“No, you are the guest,” Elsie said firmly. “You 
are to sit at the end and stay there. Go in now and 
I’ll follow.” 

But Kate did not pass in. She stood frowning. 
“It isn’t fair,” she insisted. “They had no business 
to sell Aunt Katherine that seat.” 

Bertha shrugged. “Of course it’s unfair,” she 
whispered, “but there’s nothing to do about it.” She 
was bothered by the attention they were beginning to 
attract. She wished Kate would go in and sit down. 

“Then we ought to complain,” Kate insisted, still 
blocking up the aisle. 

“To whom?” Bertha asked. Her tone said she 
would have nothing to do with it. 

Elsie murmured quickly, “Oh, let’s not,” and gave 


1 4 o THE VANISHING COMRADE 

Kate a slight push. She, too, was conscious of their 
conspicuous situation. “/ couldn’t.” 

Kate, too, knew that they were attracting the 
attention of many people. All the more she was 
determined not to accept the injustice of that post 
seat meekly. They were early; the curtain would 
not go up for ten minutes. The orchestra was only 
just coming into the pit. 

“You go in and sit down. But give me the ticket 
stubs. I’ll make them fix this up.” Kate did not 
whisper or even lower her voice. She spoke calmly, 
with assurance. Underneath she was as diffident 
as the other two, but hers was not a nature to 
tolerate such injustice supinely. 

Elsie, with one quick, surprised glance, thrust the 
stubs into this country cousin’s hand, and Kate was 
off up the steep aisle, bent on business. When she 
had pushed her way through the incoming crowds 
out into the upper foyer the first thing she saw was 
the detective, leaning against the wall trying to look 
unconcerned and as though he belonged there. In 
spite of the crowds their eyes happened to meet. 
Kate’s cool look said, “So you are here.” Then she 
turned away and fought her passage down the stairs. 

The young man scowled. Well, this was not the 
niece he was to watch. She had light curls, and his 
chief had said she would be wearing a green silk 
suit. Even so this bobbed-haired one was of the 
party. He was troubled by her movements. What 
was she leaving her seat for? Where was she going? 


KATE TAKES THE HELM 141 

He really ought to find out, but, on the other hand, if 
he forsook his post here he might miss Miss Elsie if 
she should come out. No, he must stay, but it was 
annoying all the same. 

At the box office they were turning people away. 
“No seats left,” Kate heard on every side. But that 
did not stop her. “They can put a chair in the 
aisle,” she thought. “They must do something. 
People should have what they pay for.” 

But the man at the ticket window gave her no 
hope. “All sold out,” he assured her before she had 
had time to say a word. When he heard her com¬ 
plaint he merely said, “Well, we’ll give you your 
money back. I could sell that post seat a hundred 
times over in the next five minutes. All you need 
is to lean a little. Where’s your stub?” 

“I don’t want the money,” Kate protested. “I 
want to see the play. It was a cheat, selling a seat 
like that. I want another one. In fact, I want three 
other seats, for we have to sit together.” 

The man laughed, much amused at that. And 
several by-standers laughed, too. Kate’s cheeks 
fired. 

“Where can I find the manager?” she asked, 
straightening her spine and looking hard at the 
amused young man. 

The man strangled his laugh and pointed across 
the lobby to a door marked “Private.” “There, if 
he’s in. Much good it’ll do you.” 

As Kate left the window and crossed to the door 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


142 

indicated she heard several titters. That made her 
determination deeper. She knocked firmly right in 
the middle of the word “Private.” 

As she got no answer to her knocking she followed 
her usual course when uncertain, or embarrassed— 
abrupt action. In this instance she simply opened 
the door and stepped in. She did this in exactly the 
way she often spoke when she had no intention of 
speaking. A man turned from a window where he 
was leaning looking down into the crowded street 
watching the people flooding to “The Blue Bird.” 
He was a youngish man with nice lines around his 
eyes, smiling lines. But the eyes were very keen. 
Whether he was truly the manager or not Kate never 
learned, but he was manager enough for her purposes. 
She told him her grievance. He listened respectfully 
without a word until she had finished. Then, still 
without a word to her, he took up a telephone instru¬ 
ment from his desk and spoke briskly into it: “Box 
office, any seats left?” he asked. “Good, that’s fine. 
Give the young lady who was at your window a min¬ 
ute ago one in the lower left.” He hung up and 
turned to Kate. 

“The house is sold out,” he informed her in a 
voice that was fairly jubilant. “And they said it 
couldn’t be done in the States in summer!” She 
felt that he wanted to dance and was constrained only 
by her presence. “All except a few box seats. They 
come too high. You can get yours now at the office 
all right. I’ve fixed it.” 


KATE TAKES THE HELM 143 

But Kate did not move to go. “There are three 
of us,” she explained. “We have to stay together. 
We are with a chaperon. You hung up before I 
could tell you.” 

The manager was dashed. He had expected grati¬ 
tude. “With a chaperon? Why isn’t she here fix¬ 
ing things instead of you, then ? ” he asked with reason. 

“Well, she didn’t like to. She was willing to sit 
behind the post. She’s really my cousin’s maid, 
but my aunt lets her chaperon us.” 

“Oh, I see.” There was something of humorous 
admiration in the manager’s voice now. He liked 
Kate’s spirit. He snatched up the telephone again. 
“Three seats for that lady just mentioned,” he 
commanded into it. “Front ones.” 

Then Kate did thank him and smiled—her 
peculiar, charming smile. He responded to it with a 
beam of his own. But her last words were, “It was a 
cheat, wasn’t it, selling that post seat to anybody!” 

His reply was simply “ Rather! ” as he held the door 
for her. She had read enough to know by his use of 
that word that he was English. He had spoken his 
“rather” in the most natural, sincere way possible. 

The box-office man eyed her with respect. “Never 
thought you’d turn the trick,” he said, admiringly. 
But Kate did not deign to answer. Suddenly she 
felt her conspicuousness too keenly. She took the 
tickets he offered her and fled away up the stairs, not 
looking at any one. 

In the upper foyer the detective was on the watch 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


144 

for her. He sighed with relief when she appeared 
and vanished again through the swinging doors into 
the balcony. Well, his “party” was safe now until 
after the play. It was unfortunate that he had not 
been able to secure a seat inside where he could keep 
his eye on them directly. When the curtain went up 
he would slip in and stand in the back, of course. 
After all, things were pretty satisfactory. They 
certainly couldn’t escape his attention now. So 
far their doings had been innocent enough, all except 
that little excursion of the bobbed-haired one. Had 
she taken a note to someone? Perhaps he had been 
foolish not to follow her. 

“Seats in a box! Oh, Kate, how did you ever!” 
Elsie looked at Kate with sincerest admiration shin¬ 
ing in her eyes, and Kate felt for ever repaid for all 
her effort. If Elsie had acquitted herself well at 
luncheon, Kate had surely acquitted herself well 
here. They were equals. Comrades? 

An usher hurried toward them as they came out 
into the aisle. “The curtain is about to go up,” she 
warned. She felt, perhaps, that they had already 
made too much disturbance. 

“Yes, but we have seats down in a box,” Kate said 
with composure. The usher reached her hand for 
the tickets. “This way, then. There are stairs 
behind these curtains. If you hurry you’ll be there 
before the lights go out.” 

“Ha, ha, Mr. Detective!” Kate laughed to herself 
as she felt her way down the narrow, velvet-carpeted 


KATE TAKES THE HELM 


145 

stairs. “You are losing us now. You’ll watch up 
there in vain.” 

Their seats were quite perfect, almost on the stage, 
three chairs in the very front of the best box in the 
house, three throne-like chairs with gilded arms and 
cushioned backs! 

“We ought to be more dressed,” Bertha whispered, 
a little uneasily, as in their conspicuous position she 
felt that the eyes of the whole great audience were 
upon them. But Elsie laughed softly. “Who cares!” 
she exclaimed. “And won’t Aunt Katherine be sur¬ 
prised when she hears of all this state!” 

Music. The asbestos curtain rolling up, revealing 
night-coloured velvet curtains with a huge gold 
shield. Lights out. The two girls, recently so 
estranged, were for the hours of this play closest 
sisters. In Fairyland all are friends. They gripped 
hands. Soon they simply sat close together, arm-in¬ 
arm, entranced. The theatre, the huge audience, 
dissolved for them in mist. The stage was not a 
stage. They were moving with Mytil and Tyltyl 
through frightening or lovely or saddening scenes, 
all equally enthralling. They were moving bodiless. 
They were Tyltyl and Mytil. 

Not until the very last minute of the play, when the 
night-coloured curtains had drawn together for the 
last time and the blue bird was at large again, perhaps 
somewhere in the upper reaches of the gilded theatre, 
did the girls again take up their habitations in their 
own minds and bodies. They looked at each other 


146 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

then and sighed, waking as from a dream they had 
shared. Bertha was quite pale with emotion and sur¬ 
reptitiously wiping away her tears. 

The first waking thought that Kate had was 
gratefulness that Bertha had seen the play as it ought 
to be seen and not cut in two by a post, since she 
cared for it so much. 

All three were almost silent on the journey to the 
station, wrapped in the afterglow of the play’s 
thraldom. But just outside the gates of the train 
shed Elsie looked all about and asked a question: 
“ That young man in the polka-dotted tie seems to have 
disappeared,” she observed. “He was here when 
we came, outside of Madame Pearl’s in that taxi, in 
the hallway to the club and upstairs at the theatre. 
What’s happened to him now?” 

“Oh, did you notice him, too?” Kate asked, sur¬ 
prised. “And in the club? I missed him there. 
How did he get in?” 

“He was talking to the telephone girl and watching 
us while we had lunch. I saw through the door. He 
acted like a detective, or something. I was going to 
point him out to you, and then every time I got 
interested in what we were saying and forgot. What 
do you suppose he was doing?” 

Kate was suddenly embarrassed. She knew very 
well what he was doing, but of course she was bound 
not to tell. 

“He acted like a detective,” Elsie said, musingly. 
“Just exactly the way they act in books.” 


KATE TAKES THE HELM 147 

“Yes. And we might have been thieves, or some¬ 
thing/’ Kate took it up. 

But at her words Elsie stiffened. Although Kate 
at the minute was not looking at her she felt the 
stiffening. And when they were established in their 
coach and Kate did turn to look at Elsie she saw at 
once that the comrade had vanished again! What 
had she done? And how could she bear it after this 
perfect day? Oh, no, it was not to be borne. Things 
couldn’t happen like that. She leaned toward Elsie 
and spoke quickly, urgently but softly. 

“Don’t get icy again,” she pleaded. “If I’ve 
offended you, I truly don’t know how. And we’ve 
had such a splendid day of it. Deep down everything 
seems to be all right with us. It’s only on top things 
keep going wrong. Don’t look like that. Don’t.” 

But Elsie did not respond to Kate’s pleading. She 
kept on looking “like that” and merely commented 
coldly, “You do say such queer things. I don’t 
know what you mean.” 

And from then on Elsie, dropping all her city bear¬ 
ing, curled one foot up under her on the car seat, 
turned her shoulder to Kate, leaned her chin on her 
hand, and gazed out of the window. Kate sat biting 
her lips with clutched hands. After a while, when 
she realized that Elsie’s “cold shoulder” was to be 
permanent, she got up and crossed the aisle to sit 
by herself at a window. 

“Why am I not furious with her?” she asked 
herself. “She has no right to treat me like that! 


148 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

And I am angry, of course. But I’m not very angry. 
Why am I not very angry ?” 

The conclusion she finally arrived at was that she 
couldn’t be very angry until she understood what it 
was all about. There was a mystery that needed 
solving. Kate felt herself destined to solve it. 
There was an elation in that prospect that bore her 
up above the moment’s worries and confusions. 
“If you’re going to live you’ve got to be willing to 
suffer,” she told herself sententiously. “And cer¬ 
tainly I am living!” Then her eyes crinkled into 
their nicest Chinese smile. For Kate was perfectly 
capable of being amused at herself. 


CHAPTER XII 


THE SPECIAL DELIVERY 

TV/TISS FRAZIER approved, and was even de¬ 
lighted with the frocks when she came up to 
view them after breakfast next morning. 

“Shall we try them on for you?” Kate offered 
eagerly. 

“No, I don’t believe so. I can trust Madame 
Pearl, I am sure, to say nothing of you girls your¬ 
selves ! And there is a lot to be done now to get ready 
for the party.” 

Miss Frazier was moving and speaking in sup¬ 
pressed excitement, any one could see that. This 
party to her was to be a significant moment in her 
own life as well as in the girls’! 

“What can we do?” Kate asked. 

“You may help me to decorate the drawing-room 
and hall. If I engage a professional person he will 
simply load the whole place with flowers in a set and 
stuffy way. Besides, this is an informal party, and 
we want the decorations to be very simple and un¬ 
studied.” Then Miss Frazier added with a twinkle 
in her eye, “That’s why we must study very hard 
and fuss and consult.” 

Both girls laughed at that. 


149 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


150 

“Fm expecting a man now to help Timothy move 
the furniture back for dancing. As soon as they are 
done we can begin. The dresses are charming, and I 
congratulate you.” 

Since getting into the train the afternoon before 
the comrade in Elsie had not been visible. The girls 
had spoken to each other only in monosyllables and 
with eyes usually averted. Almost as though they 
had agreed upon it, however, they played up a little 
in the presence of their aunt. She had been so kind 
to them and counted so much on the day together to 
have made them friends, they had not the heart to 
let her see just how things stood between them. So 
at dinner they had told her of the day’s adventures 
vivaciously, dwelling most on their reactions to “The 
Blue Bird” and the episode of the post. For some 
reason Elsie did not mention the young man who had 
shadowed them in such an unshadowy way. That 
omission surprised Kate and gave her pause. What 
did such reticence mean ? Aunt Katherine had been 
much diverted by Kate’s account of her interview 
with the box-office clerk and the manager. Her 
comment had been, “You are a Frazier, Kate! You 
have a spine. I imagine the manager sensed that.” 

After dinner the three had settled to a quite excit¬ 
ing game of Mah Jong. No need for Elsie and Kate 
to pretend friendliness then, for the game took all 
their attention, and they could forget each other as 
persons. After that there was a brief stroll in the 
garden, Aunt Katherine walking between the girls, 


THE SPECIAL DELIVERY 151 

their arms drawn through hers. It had all seemed 
very peaceful and congenial. But there had been 
no “good-nights” upstairs, though in accordance 
with Aunt Katherine’s will the doors stood open 
between the two bedrooms. 

So now, when Aunt Katherine left to attend to the 
moving of the furniture, Kate turned to Bertha and 
said, “I shall be in the garden over by the Demons’ 
hedge, writing letters. Will you call me when Miss 
Frazier is ready, Bertha?” 

Without a glance at Elsie she picked up her pad 
and hurried out. She hoped that Elsie realized she 
was avoiding using the sitting-room and the desk they 
were supposed to share; and she would not have 
minded knowing that Elsie’s conscience bothered her 
about it. But if it did, Elsie gave no sign. She 
herself simply turned away about some business of 
her own. 

There was so much for Kate to tell her mother in 
this letter that was interesting and wonderful! First, 
of course, there was Madame Pearl and her most 
unique shop that didn’t look like a shop a bit. She 
must describe the frocks they had chosen, or rather 
that Madame Pearl had chosen for them; Kate 
realized now that they themselves had done no choos¬ 
ing at all. Then dining in the luxurious club—she 
would describe that in detail. She had never in her 
life had quite such a stimulating conversation with 
any one before as that conversation at luncheon. 
She recalled it now as an hour during which she had 


152 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

thought , and thought rapidly, and expressed her 
thoughts to an attentive listener who in her turn 
thought and came back at her in a most provocative 
manner. Ideas had spun in the air between them 
like iridescent bubbles, changing colour as they 
turned and you viewed different sides of them. The 
truth about that was that two most congenial minds 
had discovered each other, and that is as exciting an 
adventure as there is in the world, and not at all an 
ordinary one. The thing that gave this experience 
its final tang was that the two minds, though compre¬ 
hending each other perfectly, worked entirely differ¬ 
ently. It followed that for each other they had great 
discoveries and surprises. Together they danced as 
one in figures new to both!—Of course, Kate could 
not tell her mother exactly this, but she could tell 
her enough so that she would understand a little 
what had happened. But she must begin. 

Instead, unhygienically, she sucked the end of her 
pencil. 

Would Mother approve of her having accepted the 
party frock? That bothered her a little. Knowing 
Aunt Katherine now she understood her mother 
much less than ever before on these points. The 
dress must have cost—no, she would not imagine 
what it must have cost since Aunt Katherine had 
told her not to give that end of it a thought. Still, 
she would describe the dress to Mother, and she 
could come to conclusions for herself. 

“Dearest Mother”:—Oh, there was so much, so 


THE SPECIAL DELIVERY 153 

very much, it was quite hopeless to write! There 
was the fairy in the glass. That must be told first. 
There was not the slightest doubt in Kate’s mind 
that the two were exactly the same, the fairy in the 
woods that day and the reflection of Elsie in the 
mirror at Madame Pearl’s. But what its expla¬ 
nation could be was unthinkable. At the time the 
little Kate had seen the fairy in the woods, Elsie was 
only a little girl of her own age. How, then, had 
Kate seen her as she would look eight years later 
in a mirror in a Boston shop? It was such an un¬ 
answerable question that Kate’s mind turned away 
from it. Still, not for one minute did she doubt that 
the two visions had been exactly the same. What 
would Katherine make of it? 

“Hello. Good morning.” Jack Denton, in white 
flannels, tall and athletic, was standing the other side 
of the hedge, swinging his tennis racket and smiling a 
friendly, frank smile. “Excuse me, but you’re Miss 
Kate Marshall, aren’t you? My sister and I are 
coming to the party in your honour to-night. I’m 
Jack Denton, and Rose will be out in a minute. If 
you’ll play a set with us I’ll call up another fellow and 
make doubles.” 

Kate jumped up, delighted. She went to the wall. 
“Good morning,” she said. “I was just beginning 
a letter. But I’d love to play—that is, for a little 
while, till Aunt Katherine needs me. But why don’t 
we just shout for Elsie? She likes tennis, I know, 
and Aunt Katherine says she plays wonderfully.” 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


154 

But Jack’s expression had changed queerly. He 
grew slightly red and avoided looking directly at 
Kate. “No need to get any one yet,” he objected. 
“Heaven knows when Rose will be out. She’s awfully 
pokey—slow. Let us begin just by ourselves till she 
does appear, anyway. Can you jump? Here’s a 
hand.” 

But Kate shook her head. “No, thanks. I don’t 
think I’ll play, after all. I may be called any minute 
to help Aunt Katherine, and besides—besides, it’s 
very warm, isn’t it?” 

Kate was looking at the pad in her hand, about to 
turn away. 

But Jack kept her a minute. “Oh, I say! You 
aren’t offended, are you? I wouldn’t do that for 
anything!” 

“No, of course not.” But Kate’s negation was 
made only out of a spirit of reserve and also embar¬ 
rassment. “No.” 

“But you are, and I don’t wonder. Of course 
you’d be on your cousin’s side. And listen. We are, 
too. Rose and I and all of us are, always have been. 
We never could see any sense in all the hubbub. It’s 
just been Grandmother and Grandmother’s friends. 
We all thought Elsie was great stuff when she visited 

Miss Frazier before- And we’re coming to the 

party to-night, you bet. Only—at this minute 
Grandmother is sitting right up there in a window 
where she can see the court, and it might change her, 
decide her for some reason not to go to-night. She 



THE SPECIAL DELIVERY 


155 

feels that her going formally and giving in, as it were, 
publicly, is the thing that’s going to turn the trick. 
It’s her show, sort of. If we did it first, now, she 
might be just as bad as ever again, begin all over 
again. Do you see?” 

“No, I don’t see,” Kate said in all truth. Jack’s 
explanations shed no light whatsoever. His face had 
grown steadily redder as he realized that he had 
simply made a mess of it. “I don’t see.” 

But even as she stood looking at Jack Denton she 
was smiling at herself mentally, to hear how her voice 
had taken on the very timbre of Elsie’s when she was 
being her most unpleasantly polite. What a copy 
cat she was. Still, there was a certain satisfaction in 
finding herself so successful in a self-made role. “All 
you say is just Greek to me. And I ought to be 
writing my letter. Good morning.” 

She turned deliberately and sauntered back to her 
place in the shade of the orchard. But Jack did not 
leave the wall. He stayed there watching her, a 
frown gathering on his brow. When she was seated, 
with her back against an apple tree trunk and her pad 
ready on her knee, he called again. 

“Oh, I say,” he called. “I thought you knew 
everything about it all, of course. If you don’t, it’s 
a shame. I just can’t be apologetic enough.” 

But Kate did not turn to him. “Go away, go 
away, go away,” she said, mentally. “I don’t want 
to hear any more. It’s not for you to unravel the 
mystery. I don’t want to know from a stranger. I 


156 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

feel very indignant. Very, very indignant, and I 
hardly know why.” 

Kate’s silence meant as much to Jack Denton as 
the thoughts he could not hear. He turned away 
and strolled toward the house, swinging his racket 
and looking at the ground dejectedly. Kate was 
sorry she had been so deliberately rude, but she 
simply could not call him back. She was too really 
indignant, and at the same time unable to analyze 
her indignation. She returned to her letter. 

But she found it very difficult to write. There was 
just too much ever to begin to put on paper, in spite 
of this being only her third day here! What she 
must do was simply tell the facts and let the rest go. 
The colour of the facts, all that lay underneath and 
over them, must wait. The letter that finally 
developed was a thin affair, perfunctory and empty 
of interest. Kate had never in her life felt so far 
from her mother. 

The girls and Miss Frazier selected and cut flowers 
in the garden. They took them in loosely on their 
arms and tossed them down on a damp sheet spread 
on the floor just inside the drawing-room doors. 
Then came the deciding on receptacles and the placing 
of them. It was all very interesting, and exciting, too, 
for as the rooms grew in adornment Kate felt the 
party itself drawing nearer and nearer. Miss Frazier 
seemed very gay as they worked. She laughed and 
said whimsical things in a whimsical manner. And 
her every touch was deft, and the result artistic. 


THE SPECIAL DELIVERY 157 

That morning Kate learned more about colour values 
and proportion than she had ever learned in all her 
years of school. She had not dreamed that so much 
mind could be used on such an apparently simple 
occupation as placing a few nasturtiums in a vase! 

What a good time they were having! Kate moved 
about the big drawing-room and hall with almost 
dancing steps, she was so happy doing her aunt’s 
intelligent bidding and seeing loveliness form before 
her eyes and under her hand. And Elsie was laugh¬ 
ing quite spontaneously at Aunt Katherine’s humour 
and taking as much delight as Kate in the growing 
beauty of the arrangements. 

“Someone to speak to you on the telephone, Miss 
Frazier.” Isadora had come out from the telephone 
booth under the hall stairs. 

“Who is it, please? Always get the name, Isa¬ 
dora.” 

“Yes, ma’am. I always do when I can. But this 
gentleman won’t give his name. Says it’s not neces¬ 
sary. He wants to speak to you on important busi¬ 
ness, he says.” 

“Won’t give his name! Nonsense! Tell him, 

then-” But suddenly in the middle of this 

command Aunt Katherine’s expression changed. 
“Oh, well, I think I know now who it must be. 
That’s all right, Isadora.” 

Aunt Katherine dropped the yellow roses she was 
sorting—their wet stems and leaves instantly spread¬ 
ing white spots on to the^polished surface of the little 


158 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

table. With a quick step she hurried toward the 
telephone booth. Kate snatched up the roses and 
remedied the harm they had done as well as she 
could with her pocket handkerchief. Then she and 
Elsie simply stood idly about waiting for the doors 
of the telephone booth to open and their chieftain to 
reappear. For having seen Aunt Katherine work 
with the flowers they knew themselves incompetent 
to go ahead alone. 

As Kate leaned against the banister, and Elsie 
smoothed her hair before a little gilt mirror on the 
wall near the door and secured the shell pins holding 
it, the front-door bell suddenly rang and Isadora 
came into the hall to answer it. A postman in livery 
standing there thrust a pad at her mumbling, “Sign 
here.” 

Elsie dropped a shell pin on to the floor and rushed 
to Isadora. “It’s a special delivery,” she cried. 
“For me?” 

Yes, it was for Elsie. She almost snatched it out 
of the postman’s hands and scrawled her signature 
on the pad that Isadora surrendered. 

“All right,” she said, pushing the pad at the post¬ 
man and the next instant shutting the door directly 
in his face. Had she shoved him out? Kate was 
not at all sure she hadn’t. 

Then Elsie ran through the hall with the letter 
hugged up under her chin and up the stairs past 
Kate. “Tell Aunt Katherine I’ll be right back,” 
she called as she went. But she stopped on the first 


THE SPECIAL DELIVERY 


159 

landing to lean over the banister and whisper down, 
“ Don’t say anything about my having had a special 
delivery, will you, Kate?” 

“Of course not, if you don’t want me to. It’s 
none of my business, is it?” 


CHAPTER XIII 


“you thief!” 

|Z~ATE was dressed and ready for the party half 
an hour before dinner that night. She stood 
surveying herself in the long door mirror. Antici¬ 
pation had brought unusual colour that glowed 
even through the tan on her cheeks, and the corners 
of her lips were sharply uptilted. 

“The cap is certainly a wonder worker,” she re¬ 
flected. “It is magic; it makes me pretty. That's 
even better than having a cap to make you invisible, 
much better!” And when she smiled at this idea 
the girl in the glass smiled, too, and was fascinatingly 
pretty. “Oh, if Mother could only see me! She’d 
hardly believe. If the picture telephone were per¬ 
fected and Aunt had one I’d spend my last cent to 
call Mother up.” 

All this was not so conceited as it sounds; for 
Kate knew perfectly well that ordinarily she could 
lay no claim to prettiness, that the charm of the 
person clothed in crocus-yellow satin in the mirror 
before her was due to Madame Pearl’s artistic ge¬ 
nius and the pert, star-pointed silver cap. And when 
the idea came to her to go down to the kitchen and 
display herself to Julia in this enchantment it was 
160 


“YOU THIEF!” 


161 


wholly for Julia’s pleasure she intended it; she would 
be taking herself down in the same impersonal way 
she would take a doll down to turn it round. For 
finery of this sort and the kind of glamour that beau¬ 
tiful clothes give, she did not for a minute associate 
with herself, her very self. Ever since Julia had 
appeared to her on the stairs, asked eager questions 
about her mother and bestowed the gingerbread 
man on Kate, she had wanted to see her again. It 
seemed so queer and unnatural to be eating the 
delicious meals she cooked and ignoring her presence 
in the house. Wasn’t she a friend of her mother’s? 
But until this minute Kate had been too shy or 
too strange in the ways of her aunt’s big smoothly 
running establishment to seek Julia out in the 
dim, distant servants’ apartments. Now, however, 
in her magic cap, looking and feeling like a young 
princess, and also disguised in a way, she had no 
hesitation about it. She felt sure that Julia would 
be interested and pleased, and that Katherine, if 
she were in Kate’s place, would do that very thing. 
But on second thought she decided to wait until 
just after dinner, for this hour would surely be about 
the busiest one in a cook’s day. 

She crossed the room and sat down at her dressing 
table again, pulling out a drawer. She would re¬ 
read a letter from Sam, a scrawl that had come in 
the afternoon’s mail when she was too much occupied 
to give it her full attention. She had merely glanced 
it down hastily and put it away ini this drawer on 


i6z 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


top of the key to the orchard house. She read it 
now, bending her head and not bothering to pick 
it up. 

“Don’t let her befool you, Kitty. Take our word, 
she’s just a silly snob. You’re worth millions of her 
any minute. What a figure she’d cut in that mea¬ 
dow—you know, with the King of the Fairies! She 
just wouldn’t be anything , would she? Teach her 
a lesson. We’d like to, Lee and I.” There was 
more of the same sort; but she did not pick it up to 
turn the page. There was an uneasy stirring in her 
heart. It hadn’t been very decent of her, writing 
like that about Elsie. She could not remember now 
just how she had done it, or why. She knew that 
both Sam and Lee must have struggled together over 
the composition of this letter in reply. They had 
evidently thought it a very important letter indeed, 
and spent their best efforts on it. She appreciated 
that, and she appreciated their hot partisanship, too. 
What she didn’t appreciate at this minute was her 
own motives in having so called out their sympathy. 
And she had better tear it up. It certainly wasn’t 
a letter meant for other eyes to see. With a strange 
little ache in her soul somewhere, probably in her 
conscience, she picked up the sheet. Then her heart 
stood still, and the fingers crumpling the paper turned 
cold. She went queerly sick. The key that should 
have lain there under the letter was gone. It was 
nowhere in the drawer. And whoever had taken 
the key could scarcely have failed to read the words 


“YOU THIEF!” 163 

staring there so blackly up at you, all in Sam’s print- 
like script! 

Moreover—she saw it now—the thief had gone 
through the whole dressing table before hitting upon 
this particular drawer. Everything was a little 
out of place. The thief was Elsie, of course. No 
one else wanted the key. Well, serve her right, then, 
to have read about herself! 

Kate tore the letter into shreds and dropped it 
back into the drawer. Then she strode through 
the bathroom, and stood in Elsie’s open door. 
Elsie was already decked in her fairy green frock, her 
curls tied loosely at her neck in a way that Madame 
Pearl had begged her to wear them. But quite re¬ 
gardless of her finery she was curled up in the window 
seat, her sandaled feet tucked under her, looking 
dreamily out toward the orchard house. She was 
lost in her thoughts for she did not hear or feel Kate 
when she came striding across the room to stand 
over her. Even in the temper she was in, Kate could 
not help thinking, “How unconcerned she is about 
that beautiful frock! It’s as though she was born 
in it.. How delicate, how fairy she looks!” 

Elsie started out of her reverie at Kate’s voice. 

“Give me my key,” she was saying huskily, her 
hand held out. 

Elsie, in spite of the suddenness of the attack, did 
not stir except to turn her head. 

“What key?” 

“You know very well what key. You stole it.” 


164 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

Red scorched Elsie’s cheeks at the word “stole.” 
Kate rejoiced at that. She would make it scorch 
even redder. “You are no better than a thief, to 
hunt through my things, to read my letters. To 
steal, to steal, to steal!” 

Even as Kate stormed she knew, deep where 
knowing still had a foothold below the surface of her 
anger, that her greatest fury was at herself—fury 
that there had been such a letter for Elsie to read 
at all, that she had ever written the Hart boys as she 
had written them. But in spite of that knowing 
she seemed to have no control over the superficial 
Kate, the raging, furious Kate. 

“You thief! You’re no better than a thief! 
Give me back my key.” 

But Elsie’s response to this attack surprised Kate 
into a little calmness. She stood up, clenching her 
hands, and facing her accuser. 

“Well, if I am a thief I am proud of it, proud, 
proud. So there! If you think I’m ashamed of it 
you’re wrong! Call me thief all you like. I like 
to be called thief. I like it. I am one. I’ve got 
your old key. I’ll give it to you to-night when we 
come up to bed, not before. I meant to all along. 
Then the orchard house will be yours, all yours. 
Go live in it! I won’t care. There’s the gong.” 

But in spite of Kate’s growth in calmness her de¬ 
termination remained. “Aunt Katherine gave the 
key to me,” she said. “It belongs to me. Give it 
back this instant.” 


“YOU THIEF!” 


165 

“If I won’t, what will you do?” 

Kate considered. “If you won’t, I’ll go right out 
there after dinner and climb in at a window and 
explore the whole house. I’ll discover your blessed 
secret whatever it is and not even wait till morning. 
That’s what I’ll do.” 

Elsie stood looking at her. But something changed 
in her eyes. For a flash, or was it only Kate’s wild 
imagining, a comrade looked out through those 
clouded windows, making them in that instant clear 
as day, and then vanished. Now Kate knew what 
would have been the expression on the face of the fairy 
in the wood that June day , eight years ago , if she had not 
flashed back into the sunlight too quickly for her to 
catch it. It would have been this sky-clear look of 
the golden comrade. 

“Why don’t you say you’ll tell Aunt Katherine?” 

Kate looked at Elsie, amazed. Such an idea had 
never entered her head. Her face said so. Again 
the comrade flashed. But it vanished quicker than 
before, and this time definitely. “Well, you told 
your wonderful friends, ‘The boys,’ on me. You 
do tell, you see.” 

Kate had no answer to that. 

Elsie whirled about and went to her bed. From 
under her pillow she took the key, and returning, 
handed it to Kate, coolly. “Here it is,” she said, 
“and this is the last time I shall ever ask a favour 
of you, Kate Marshall. Please don’t use it to¬ 
night.” 


166 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


Kate accepted the key. “All right,” she promised. 
“I won't use it to-night. There won’t be time, any¬ 
way, with the party and everything.” She was not 
speaking to the Elsie who had asked the favour, 
however, but to the vanishing comrade, invisible 
now, whom she had seen clear enough in that one 
flash. Was that comrade within hearing, she won¬ 
dered. 

“Thanks,” Elsie said, as though she meant it, and 
in a relieved tone. Then she straightened. “But 
just the same, Kate Marshall, I shall never, never, 
never, never forgive you for calling me a thief, not 
so long as I live, I sha’n’t.” 

“You said you were proud of it,” Kate rather 
cruelly retorted. 

Elsie suddenly threw her arm across her eyes. 
To Kate’s dismay she was sobbing. 

“Don’t cry, don’t cry,” she begged. “The gong 
rang minutes ago. Quick, wash your eyes. For 
Aunt Katherine’s sake! She’s been so good to us. 
Let’s go on pretending everything’s all right.” 

Masterfully, but very wretched in her heart be¬ 
cause of this bitter weeping of which she was the 
cause, Kate hurried Elsie into the bathroom, ran 
some cold water into the bowl, and put a wash 
- cloth into her hands. “Quick, wash your eyes. 
For Aunt Katherine’s sake!” Kate commanded 
again, and Elsie obeyed. 

Then Kate took her hand and hurried with her out 
through the twisted passageways to the main front 


“YOU THIEF!” 


167 

hall and down the stairs. Dinner had been an¬ 
nounced some time ago, and Aunt Katherine was 
waiting, standing and impatient, in the drawing¬ 
room. But when she saw them hurrying and hand- 
in-hand she smiled. When you have dressed for 
your first real party in your first real party frock 
you may be expected to be a little late! 

“How lovely you are, Aunt Katherine.” Elsie 
gave her tribute spontaneously in as cool a way 
as though the scene upstairs had never taken place; 
and Kate echoed “Lovely, Aunt Katherine.” 

Miss Frazier was touched. “Thank you, my 
dears,” she said. “And I can return the compli¬ 
ment. In fact, Madame Pearl has outdone herself!” 

Miss Frazier deserved their tribute. She was both 
handsome and distinguished looking, with her gray¬ 
ing hair done high and topped with a jewelled comb 
that sent out shivers of light whenever she moved, 
gowned in softest lilac-coloured silk draped with 
black lace, and wearing a long black lace scarf in a 
most regal manner. The lilac, the green, and the 
crocus-yellow figures that passed into the dining¬ 
room. arm-in-arm caused the waitress Effie the most 
wide-eyed admiration. 

“And they were as friendly, just as friendly as 
could be,” she told the kitchen when she removed 
the service plates. “You’d think Miss Frazier was 
their mother, she’s that affectionate. Why, it’s like 
a regular family to-night!” 

Julia, handing out hot dishes, beamed. “Per- 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


168 

haps everything’s coming right, after all,” she said. 
“ Katherine’s child will shed sunshine all about just 
as Katherine did.” 

Bertha, sitting at a distant table playing cards 
with Timothy and the gardener, sniffed at that. 
“Miss Elsie is as capable of shedding sunshine as 
anybody,” she said, defensively. “She’s just made 
of it herself. I’m always telling you.” 

“Yes, you’re always telling. But we’re never 
seeing,” Julia retorted. “Touched with melancholy, 
she seems to me, but as nice as you please. Only 
not cheerful to have about. It’s probably her poor 
mother’s awful death. Her heart’s broke.” 

Bertha shook her head. “I don’t think her heart’s 
broken. She’s as gay as anything alone with me 
sometimes! And she’s the most generous child liv¬ 
ing.” 

“She does funny things, though,” Timothy offered 
his bit. “Carrying groceries up to her room, buying 
eggs and bread and stuff and paying for ’em herself. 
Holt told me.” 

Bertha looked at him, unbelieving. “Groceries 
in her room? No such thing. Who takes care of 
her room, do you think? I never saw such a thing 
in it. What do you mean?” 

Then Timothy related how for a week past Elsie 
had bought foodstuffs every time she went to the 
village, and refused to give them to him to carry 
around to the kitchen afterward. Julia had assured 
him they were never ordered by her; so of course 


“YOU THIEF!” 169 

Miss Elsie took them to her room. Where else could 
she keep them? 

Bertha would have nothing to do with that idea. 
Indeed, it was impossible there could be any such food 
supply as Timothy described in Elsie’s room, for 
Bertha knew every inch of that dainty apartment, 
and kept it in order. Still, she had respect for 
Timothy, and could not doubt his word when he 
insisted that Elsie actually had bought bread and 
eggs, lettuce, oil, and nuts and brought them 
home with her in the car. “What she does with 
’em’s none of our business, that I can see,” she 
volunteered. “Feeds the birds in the gardens and 
orchard perhaps. She’s that unselfish! She’s prob¬ 
ably even kinder to the birds than to human 
beings.” 

But every one laughed at this explanation. You 
don’t feed birds eggs and oil and nuts! No, there 
was some mystery about it. Julia had felt mystery 
in the air for a week past, and not just because of 
Elsie’s queer purchases and the puzzle of what be¬ 
came of them, either. Mystery was simply “in the 
air.” Julia “felt” it. 

Timothy nodded his head knowingly. Timothy 
was Irish and very romantic. “What can you ex¬ 
pect ? ” he asked. “ In a house with two young things 
like that! Why, they’ve just come out of the Fairy¬ 
land of their childhood, they’re standing now on the 
edges of life. What can you expect but mystery? 
They’re all mystery.” 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


170 

“I don’t mean that kind of mystery, Timothy,” 
Julia protested. “I mean regular down-and-out 
mystery . I feel it in my bones. You wait and see 
if I’m not right.” 

Effie had returned from the dining-room again. 
“Miss Frazier’s telling them about Rome now,” she 
said. “She says she’ll take them both there together 
sometime, if Miss Kate’s mother’ll let her go. She 
said ‘Katherine’ just as easy as though it didn’t 
hurt a bit and as though it might be any name. 
Perhaps she wouldn’t mind our speaking it now. 
Things are changing.” 

It was true. Things were changing with Miss 
Frazier. She sat at the head of her table to-night a 
light-hearted, spirited person. And she was more 
than that. She was intensely interesting. She 
said she meant soon to begin to travel, really to travel 
and see the world. Arabia attracted her, and all 
Asia. A book by a man named Ferdinand Ossen- 
dowski had lately stimulated her roving instincts 
and enthralled her imagination. Why should she 
not explore a totally different civilization from the 
one she had been born into! She recounted some 
of Ossendowski’s exploits, adventures, and escapes, 
and his stories of the “King of the World.” As she 
talked a panorama entirely new to her listeners 
unrolled before their minds’ visions. What a place 
this world was, what a place to be alive in, and what 
a time to be alive! How the importance of per¬ 
sonal affairs evaporated in the face of such contem- 


“YOU THIEF!” 


171 

plation! The girls were as stirred as Miss Frazier 
herself apparently had been stirred; they were lifted 
out of themselves. They felt that the world was a 
challenge, that life was a challenge—a glorious one. 
For the time the party, drawing so near now, sank 
into insignificance. 

But Miss Frazier, looking at their eager faces, sud¬ 
denly remembered. She said, “ Katherine wouldn’t 
let me take you to such out-of-the-way places yet, 
Kate, and of course I wouldn’t want to. But when 

we go to Rome-” Then she had talked about 

Rome and places nearer home. But in speaking 
of them she touched them with a new light and in¬ 
terest. Kate’s dream, as most girls’ dreams, had 
often been of some day going “abroad.” Such an 
adventure in contemplation had always seemed the 
very height of happiness to her. But now, Miss 
Frazier’s conversation lent travel new glamour, for 
Miss Frazier was steeped in history, the history of 
nations and religions and art, and her idea of travel 
was not simply of adventure into lands, but into 
realms of imagination, and into the past. 

“Would you girls like to travel with me for a sum- 
mer-^-perhaps next summer?” she asked. 

Kate’s joy at such a prospect was too great to allow 
of words. She simply glowed at Aunt Katherine. 
But Elsie suddenly turned away her head. Some¬ 
how then, in that instant, the spell was broken. 
The dinner table with the diners floated back to Miss 
Frazier’s house in Oakdale, Massachusetts, and there 



172 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

they sat, consuming “cottage pudding” with lemon 
sauce, dressed and ready for a party. 

After dinner Miss Frazier settled down, expecting 
to finish “The King of the Fairies” before the guests 
began to arrive, leaving the girls to amuse themselves 
in their own way. Elsie wandered out on to the star- 
lighted terrace, looking exactly like a dreamy fairy. 
Kate went with her, not speaking, and soon leaving 
her, to find her way around to the kitchen door. 

The servants in their own attractive dining-room 
were just beginning dinner. Kate had forgotten 
how many of them there would be, and was almost 
overcome with embarrassment, when they all leapt 
to their feet and the maids walked around her in a 
circle, exclaiming admiringly. “I just wanted to 
show Julia the new frock Aunt Katherine gave me,” 
Kate was explaining a little breathlessly. “I never 
seem to see you, Julia,” she added, catching her eye 
at last in the group, “and I never really thanked you 
for the gingerbread man and your kind inquiries 
about Mother.” 

“To think,” exclaimed Julia, “of my giving you 
a gingerbread man! Where were my wits? Why, 
you’re a young lady. But your mother liked ginger¬ 
bread even after she was a young lady.” 

“You’ll have a fine time at your party in that 
gown,” Isadora affirmed. “You couldn’t help it. 
There’ll be nothing half so beautiful.” 

Meanwhile Bertha beamed. In a way she felt 
responsible for this young vision of splendour. 


“YOU THIEF!” 


173 

Hadn’t she helped choose the dress, and hadn’t she 
finally put Kate into it! She was certainly involved 
in the display. 

Then Julia said, feelingly, “We’re all grateful to 
you, Miss Kate, for bringing a party to this house 
again, for getting things natural. Miss Frazier’s 
acting like herself now, and it’s on account of you.” 

“Why, I haven’t done anything,” Kate denied. 

But she liked their praise and their warmth, and she 
felt now entirely in the mood for the party to begin. 


CHAPTER XIV 


THE STRANGER IN THE GARDEN 

COON after eight Miss Frazier stood regally in 
^ the wide hall between her two nieces, receiving 
and introducing the first arrivals. They came 
fluttering in at the big wide-open door—girls in 
shimmering, fluffy party frocks of rainbow colours; 
boys, mostly in white flannels and dark coats, but 
a few in tuxedos; and a thin scattering of two older 
generations, these latter gray-haired grandmothers 
and younger matrons—some of the mothers looking 
scarcely older than their own children, in the modern 
manner. All was murmuring, laughter. Then the 
orchestra placed back in the blue breakfast-room 
began tuning their instruments. Jack Denton 
claimed Kate for the first dance. He danced per¬ 
fectly, much better than Kate, in fact, who had 
had little experience; and all the time he kept up a 
stream of interesting nonsense. Kate laughed at 
him and swung along more and more in harmony 
with the music. How gay, how merry it all was! 
Elsie floated past, her green chiffon draperies like 
airy wings. 

“Isn’t she lovely!” Kate exclaimed in admiration 
that must find voice. “Do you know I think she 


74 


THE STRANGER IN THE GARDEN 175 

is'the very prettiest-” She was going to say, 

“the very prettiest girl I have ever seen,” but Jack 
interrupted, his brown eyes smiling down at her: 
“No, I wouldn’t say she’s the prettiest -” 

No one in all her life had ever even insinuated 
that Kate was pretty before, and the comparison 
that Jack indicated now was beyond contemplating. 
It was the magic silver cap, of course. Suppose it 
should blow off as they danced! How surprised 
Jack Denton would be! 

As the evening went on Kate entertained more and 
more the conceit that she was masquerading in 
prettiness. There was no blinking the fact that she 
was tremendously popular. And it obviously was 
not just the easy popularity of the girl for whom 
the party is given. Not a bit of it. It was spon¬ 
taneous, joyous. Perhaps she realized the reality 
of this popularity all the more because she had never 
experienced it before. At the two or three high- 
school dances in Middletown which her mother had 
allowed her to attend, while not being exactly a wall¬ 
flower, she had not particularly shone. There had 
been many minutes of suspense when she forced a 
semblance of a smile to her lips and intense interest 
to her eyes while she watched the more popular 
girls swinging by with their partners, while all her 
mind was taken up with praying that Jim Walker or 
Cecil Quinn would look in from the hall and notice 
there was a girl there not dancing. It is true that 
Jim or Cecil or some other usually did notice some- 


176 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

time before the dance was half over and come to 
her rescue, for Kate was a good sort and everybody 
liked her. At those dances Kate never counted on 
the Hart boys for attention, although they were her 
escorts to and from; for to them Kate was no better 
than a sister. They would have been glad to see 
her popular, and taken natural pride to themselves 
in it. But it never entered their heads to be gallant 
themselves. No, the high-school dances had left 
Kate secure in the conviction that she would never be 
a success socially and in the philosophical determina¬ 
tion not to care. 

But to-night all that was changed. Even Elsie, 
perfectly beautiful as she was, was not having the 
same success. She danced constantly, of course, but 
often with a boy whom Kate had had to refuse. 

In an intermission a dowager-like old lady beck¬ 
oned to Kate from a chair near an open door leading 
out on to the terrace. Kate left Jack Denton who 
at the minute was fanning her with a magazine which 
he had picked up from a table for the purpose, and 
went to the dowager. 

“ Bring a chair,” the bejewelled one commanded, 
“and talk to an old woman for a minute.” 

And when Kate had drawn up a stool that stood 
near and sat down close to her she said, “You are 
every bit as pretty as your mother was, Katherine 
Marshall. Every bit!” 

Kate shook her head, laughing. “It’s just a dis¬ 
guise,” she affirmed, mysteriously. 


THE STRANGER IN THE GARDEN 177 

“A disguise? What do you mean, you funny 
child ?” 

“This cap I am wearing is a magic cap,” Kate in¬ 
formed her, touching its star points ever so lightly 
with her finger tips. “But shh! don’t let them hear. 
I will confess to you, though, that it makes me much, 
much better looking than I really am, and more 
popular.” 

The evening had rather gone to Kate’s head. But 
the dowager person liked it. She liked it very 
much. She tapped Kate’s shoulder with her jewelled 
lorgnette. “Well, then, shall I say,” she continued 
quite in Kate’s fantastic mood, “you have your 
mother’s prettiness to begin with, and on top of that 
the magic cap has added a good bit more. But even 
better than prettiness you have her spirit. She 
was always the belle of every party. And often 
I’ve sat right here in this very chair and watched 
her gliding past with the young men. Dancers 
did glide then, not hop and walk. In spite of 
her preoccupation she always gave me a smile as 
she drifted. And I was old and ugly even then.” 

“Old and ugly! Are you wearing a magic some¬ 
thing yourself to-night, then? Perhaps it’s your 
pearls that make you seem stately and lovely!” 

There was blarney in this, for while the dowager 
was stately enough she certainly was not lovely in 
any usual sense of the word. 

But Kate was scarcely responsible. She hardly 
knew what she was saying; she was simply effer- 


178 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

vescing with high spirits and a heady self-satisfac¬ 
tion. 

The dowager laughed mellowly.JShe was not often 
mellow, and certainly she had not been mellow be¬ 
fore this evening. She had sat perfectly still in her 
chair, her hands folded, with the expression of a 
judge in court. Now, however, she was a judge no 
longer. She had slipped into the spirit of the party, 
swept in on Kate’s fantasy. Miss Frazier watching, 
but not appearing to watch, from a distant divan 
where she conversed with two or three mothers, saw 
the mellowing even at that distance and was well 
pleased. “Congratulations, Kate,” she said, men¬ 
tally. “Congratulations, and thank you.” 

Meanwhile the dowager was murmuring in Kate’s 
ear: “You are a dear! It’s for your mother’s and 
your grandfather’s sake I came to-night and per¬ 
suaded my daughter to let the young people come. 
And now I am glad I did.” 

Kate looked up at her. “Why for their sake? 
Why not come, anyway?” But as she spoke auto¬ 
matically, Kate felt her lips stiffening over the 
words. Indignation was suddenly welling up as it 
had in the garden with Jack Denton that morning. 
Glamour fled away, and Kate was straightening like 
a warrior. 

But the dowager hardly heard her question, and 
certainly did not notice the straightening process. 
She went on, “I always said no good would come of 
it. There’s something in good blood that tells— 


THE STRANGER IN THE GARDEN 179 

and in bad blood, too. Not that we knew the blood 
was bad—although in time it showed it was surely 
enough—just that we didn’t know anything about 
it! How Miss Frazier dared, a person of her race 
and blood-” 

But Kate interrupted with a strained laugh. 
“Blood!” she wanted to exclaim. “You make me 
creep. Are you Lady Macbeth’s grandmother?” 
But she uttered no sound except the laugh. This 
was fortunate for Kate, and remarkable restraint. 
She sat with lips stiffened, watching the glamour 
gliding away out of her heart, out of the party. 

The dowager had paused a minute at Kate’s 
laugh, waiting for her to speak. But now she con¬ 
tinued, “Terrible risk. Everyone warned her. But 
she would listen to nobody, not even to me. Now 
she’s trying to unmake her bed. It’s to be hoped 
she sees the folly of expecting anything good to be 
made out of bad blood. Environment! Pshaw! 
Futile!” 

Kate shivered. She looked around for a way of 
escape from this murmuring, croaking person whom 
but a. minute ago she had dubbed stately and lovely. 
If she should start now and dance off on the music 
that was beginning again might she outdance the 
spectre? Might she overtake the glamour? There 
was Elsie, standing alone for the minute in the open 
doorway a few steps away. Kate knew now why 
she had outdistanced Elsie in popularity to-night; 
she knew it as she watched her, hardly aware of 


180 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

thinking about it at all. Elsie was too fine, too 
entirely lovely in the real meaning of the word to 
appeal to any but those sensitive to loveliness in its 
purest essence. She did not belong to the party at 
all. She belonged to the starlight beyond the lamp¬ 
light, to the dim orchard—to the orchard house! 

“Whom will you dance this with?” the dowager 
was inquiring in Kate’s ear. 

“The first person that gets here,” Kate replied, 
quickly. But the dowager did not take offence. 
Several were in the race, but a tall, lanky youth won, 
a humorous creature with a happy-go-lucky bearing. 
When Kate rose to dance off with him, the dowager 
took her hand. She smiled up at her in the most 
friendly manner. “You must come to call on me 
soon,” she said. “Or I will call for you and take you 
for a drive and then home for tea. That will be 
better, I think. How is that?” 

“Thank you.” Kate managed to smile, but it 
was a smile her mother would never have recognized. 

“Til say,” her partner informed her the minute they 
were out of hearing, “you’ve made a hit. Do you 
know who she is? Jack Denton’s grandmother, 
Mrs. Van Vorst-Smith. The social autocrat of Oak¬ 
dale. Everything will come your way now.” 

But Kate did not respond to this gay assurance. 
“What’s the matter?” her partner asked, surprised. 
Responsiveness had been Kate’s greatest charm all 
the evening, if she had only known it, not the cap. 

“Nothing. Only I’m chilly.” 


THE STRANGER IN THE GARDEN 181 

The boy whistled. “No wonder, having sat next 
to that old iceberg so long. Though ’twas probably 
the air from the door, too. It’s lots cooler and a 
storm is coming up, I think. I’d have rescued you 
sooner if Td had the nerve. She looked almost 
outlandishly amiable, though. What was her line? ,, 

Kate shivered, a pretend shiver this time, getting 
her gaiety back. “Blood! Just blood, if you will 
believe me. Is she an ogress as well as a social auto¬ 
crat? She discussed blood in several of its phases. 
Bad blood, good blood, and talking blood. Like the 
singing bone, I suppose.” 

The boy laughed heartily. “She didn’t waste 
any time in mounting her hobby, I’ll say. But she 
can’t worry you. Your blood’s all right. That’s 
the word’s been going ’round ever since the invi¬ 
tations were out. ‘Fraziers, one of the best families 
in Massachusetts.’ She was probably congratulat¬ 
ing you and expecting a return of the compliment.” 

Kate laughed. But in spite of her new gaiety, the 
corners of her mouth had quite lost their winged 
tilt. 

After a few more dances, supper was announced. 
Kate had promised Jack Denton early in the evening 
that she would take supper with him. She saw him 
now looking about for her. In an instant their eyes 
would meet and he would hurry across to her where 
she stood for the minute alone. But she suddenly 
realized that she was tired. She ached with too 
much dancing. She would never have acknowledged 


182 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


this to herself, of course, unless something had gone 
wrong with the evening. Hardly knowing why, she 
stepped out of the door near which she was for the 
instant standing, backward. That step precipitated 
her into a different world entirely. The stars had 
disappeared behind dark, windy rain clouds. The 
air was fresh, and you heard a wind and felt its 
edges. Kate took a deep breath. She would stay 
here in the blowy dark just for a little. It wouldn’t 
hurt Jack to search a minute longer. 

She moved, still backward, farther away from the 
lighted doorway. She brushed against a garden 
chair and sat down. She leaned her head against 
its high back. An impulse came to take off the 
magic silver cap and be herself. Whimsically she 
lifted it from her head and placed it on her knee. 

“Now you’re just Kate Marshall,” she spoke to 
herself, but aloud. “Just ordinary, plain-as-day 
Kate Marshall. Dowagers can’t spoil anything for 
you. They wouldn’t pay enough attention to you 
now to bother about spoiling. All the magic that’s 
really your own, all that isn’t false magic, she can’t 
touch. Nothing she could say could touch it.” 

Kate sighed, having finished her little heartfelt 
speech to herself. She felt relieved and freshened. 
She had certainly cast off the dowager’s spell. 

“That’s right. All the magic that’s your own/ 
nobody, even a Mrs. Van Vorst-Smith, can touch. 
It’s safer than the stars from troubling!” 

That was a low voice speaking directly behind her. 


THE STRANGER IN THE GARDEN 183 

No, it was not simply her own thoughts, although 
those words might very well have been in her mind 
that minute, for some of them were right out of “The 
King of the Fairies.'' But it had been a voice, a 
man's voice. 

Slowly she turned her head. Directly behind her 
chair a man was standing. She could not see his 
features at all, because the night was so black, 
but she thought that he was hatless, and she knew 
he was in dark clothes. The wind, not merely its 
edges, had come to earth now. Was it flapping the 
borders of a long dark cape enveloping the vague 
figure ? 

The vague figure bent down to her. Yes, it was a 
dark cape, blowing away from his shoulders on the 
wind. It seemed as though the being himself leaned 
down out of the wind. “Give this to Elsie, please,” 
he said, in quite a matter-of-fact tone now. Then 
the wind took him. At least Kate could not see 
him any more. He had stepped back among the 
tall lilac bushes that bordered the terrace at that 
spot. 

When he was gone it was just exactly as though he 
had never been, except for the folded paper that 
Kate found clutched in her hand. That folded 
paper, however, definitely fixed him as a reality. 
But who could it have been? Mr. O'Brien, the de¬ 
tective, crossed Kate's mind, or one of his assistants, 
that young man of the polka-dotted tie. But in¬ 
stantly she laughed, though silently, at such a notion. 


18 4 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

They, neither of them, she felt sure, would by any 
chance have quoted from “The King of the Fairies” 
while doing business. “It’s safer than the stars 
from troubling.” Had the King of the Fairies 
himself passed her there on the wind? No, hardly. 
He wouldn’t be leaving a note for Elsie. 

Anyway, whoever it might be, he had spoken in 
a voice whose bidding she was ready to follow. 
She rose and took the few steps between the chair 
and the drawing-room door. But she stepped over 
the sill without hurry, with a meditative air. The 
man, standing a little way in among the tall lilac 
bushes, said to himself; “She’s the right stuff. 
Not startled or upset. Good for Kate Marshall!” 

Jack Denton pounced upon her almost at once. 
“Where have you been?” he cried. “The salad I 
fought for and won for you has just been com¬ 
mandeered by my grandmother. Now will you 
agree to stay put while I dash into the fray in the 
dining-room again?” 

“Yes, after a minute. First I must find Elsie. 
I have to see her very specially.” 

“Elsie? Haven’t laid eyes on her for some time. 
Give me your message and I’ll go hunt.” 

“No, but do look around for her. I will, too, and 
that will save time.” 

| Elsie was not to be found anywhere in all the 
rooms that were lighted and open that evening on 
the first floor of the house. “She’s just not down 
here at all, unless she’s somewhere in the servants’ 


THE STRANGER IN THE GARDEN 185 

wing,” Jack finally reported when they met by 
chance at the foot of the stairs. 

Kate now went to her aunt who was having salad 
sitting between two dowagers, one of them Kate’s 
dowager. “I am looking for Elsie, Aunt Kather¬ 
ine,” she said. “Have you seen her recently?” 

Miss Frazier shook her head. “Not for some 
time. I myself have been wondering what has 
become of her.” Miss Frazier’s dark eyes as she 
lifted them to Kate were clouded with worried sur¬ 
mise. 

Mrs. Van Vorst-Smith laughed. As a laugh, it 
sounded a trifle unsure of itself and uneasy for a 
dowager person. “I had a few words with the child 
myself half an hour or so ago,” she volunteered. 
“Strangely enough, she took some offence at some 
remarks that were meant only kindly, and flounced 
off. Perhaps she is sulking somewhere about it.” 

“I am sorry, Mrs. Van Vorst-Smith, if my niece 
was rude to you.” But in spite of the words Miss 
Frazier’s tone was not at all a sorry tone; it was 
rather edged. She herself had just been submitted 
to some remarks of Mrs. Van Vorst-Smith’s that were 
doubtless meant kindly, and as a consequence her 
sympathy was all with Elsie. But even so, if Elsie 
were sulking, she was undoing all that Miss Frazier’s 
efforts had built up in her behalf. That was a pity. 

“Don’t apologize for the young person you call 
your niece,” Mrs. Van Vorst-Smith said, suavely. 
“We will lay it simply at the door of the times. 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


186 

There is no respect for age, say nothing of birth , in 
this generation.” 

Miss Frazier paid slight attention to these acid 
remarks. She merely said to Kate in a concerned 
tone, “I’d go upstairs to look for her, Kate. Under 
no circumstances must the party be ruined for her 
by anybody. Do persuade her to come back and 
forget any hurts she may have received. Do your 
best.” 

Kate flew away on the errand, her heart rejoiced 
that her aunt had answered the dowager exactly as 
she had. 

There was no light in the girls’ suite. “She can’t 
be here,” Kate decided. But just to make abso¬ 
lutely certain she went through and, fumbling for 
it, turned on the switch just inside Elsie’s door. 

The first thing that caught her eye under the 
shaded lights that blossomed forth so obediently at 
the pressure of her finger was the fairy green frock 
dropped in a heap exactly in the middle of the floor, 
the white sandals topping it! Elsie herself was un¬ 
dressed and in bed! 

“Go away, go away,” she commanded, plaintively, 
not even looking to see who was in the room. 

Kate stood dumbfounded. Then she remembered 
her aunt’s clouded, kind eyes, and the dowager’s 
haughty, skeptical nose. She braced herself. “I 
can’t go away,” she said softly, evenly. “Not until 
you get up and get dressed and come downstairs 
with me. How can you treat Aunt Katherine so?” 


THE STRANGER IN THE GARDEN 187 

“I won’t get dressed. I won’t go down again. I 
hate the party! It’s your party, anyway. I’m not 
needed down there.” 

Was Aunt Katherine right in the theory she had 
put forward at the Green Shutter Tea Room? Was 
Elsie simply jealous? But Kate rejected that 
thought almost before it had presented itself. In 
fact, she caught only the tail of it as it switched by! 
She spoke reasonably. 

“Yes, it’s my party so-called. But you know 
perfectly well that Aunt Katherine means it even 
more for you. It’s so that you’ll get to be friendly 
with all the girls and boys who you say hardly speak 
to you. My being here was just an opportunity. 
Now if you vanish in the very middle of things, 
how do you think that will help any of us? It will 
be just unspeakable.” 

“I want to be unspeakable. Go away.” 

“Yes, perhaps you do. You are, anyway. But 
do you want Aunt Katherine to be ashamed ? Could 
you ever forgive yourself for treating her so? She 
knows Mrs. Van Vorst-Smith has been rude to you, 
and she herself just now has come very near being 
rude to Mrs. Van Vorst-Smith on your account. 
Whatever aW the fuss is about—honestly and truly 
I haven’t an idea what it is about myself—Aunt 
Katherine is all for you, Elsie. She’s your cham¬ 
pion. You can’t go back on her now, right before 
everyone. It doesn’t matter whether you’re having 
a good time, not a bit. If you’re any good at all 


188 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

you’ll get dressed in a jiffy and go back down with 
me. You can pretend you’re having a good time.” 

Kate finished. Her argument had exhausted her 
strangely. She found herself trembling with the 
intenseness of her conviction that Aunt Katherine 
must be saved from all embarrassment. 

For a few minutes Elsie made no visible response 
to the harangue but lay perfectly still, her eyes shut, 
her head turned away. Kate stood in the middle of 
the room, the fairy green dress at her feet, waiting. 
“I’ve done all I can,” she told herself. “Now we’ll 
just see whether she has any sense at all.” 

After a space of utter stillness Elsie stirred, threw 
back the coverlet, and sat up. “You’re right, I 
suppose,” she said, sulkily. “I’m just a pig, that’s 
all. I was only thinking of myself.” 

She did not look at Kate but busied herself picking 
up her scattered clothes. When Kate started to 
leave the room, however, she called her back. “Do 
you mind helping me with these?” she asked almost 
humbly. “I don’t want to ring for Bertha. Do 
you mind?” 

“Of course not. Let’s hurry. Everybody’ll be 
wondering.” 

But now when Kate’s hands were needed she was 
recalled to the note still clutched in her fingers. 

“Oh, I entirely forgot,” she exclaimed, dismayed. 
“Here is a note for you.” 

Elsie unfolded the paper. If she had looked 
miserable before, when she had finished reading the 


THE STRANGER IN THE GARDEN 189 

few words on that paper she looked tragic. “Who 
gave it to you ? How did you get it ? ” 

Kate was amazed at the way petulance had turned 
to sorrow. 

“I don’t know who, or even exactly how,” she 
confessed. “I was alone for a second on the ter¬ 
race. A man appeared just out of the wind in a blow¬ 
ing, long cape. He had a singing voice at first so 
I hardly knew whether he was real. And he quoted 
‘The King of the Fairies.’” 

Elsie nodded. Nothing in Kate’s account sur¬ 
prised her apparently. The girls did not speak to 
each other again but silently worked together re¬ 
pairing the damage done to Elsie’s hair-dressing, 
getting her into the fairy green dress, and finally 
bathing away evidences of tears. Supper was just 
about over downstairs before they were ready to 
descend, and dance strains sounding. Jack had not 
given Kate up, however, but was faithfully waiting 
for her on the stairs. 

He saw the girls the minute they appeared at the 
upper turning, and bounded up several steps to meet 
them. “Where have you been hiding?” he asked, 
laughingly, and without any signs of surprise what¬ 
ever. “I’ve managed to save some salad for you 
both and ices, too, here in the window seat.” 

It was a window seat on the stairs, halfway down 
the first flight. “Oh, thanks,” Kate said, heartily. 
“Have you had some yourself, though?” 

“Hardly likely, not until you came. Didn’t you 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


190 

promise to have supper with me?” Jack looked 
feigned surprise and grief. 

He was certainly making their return to society 
easier. Girls and boys glanced up at them rather 
curiously as they danced past the drawing-room door, 
and a few of the mothers, sitting where they had a view 
of the stairs and the landing, rather stared. But since 
the truants could laugh and talk with Jack, who was 
acting as though their absence had been in no way 
extraordinary, they had no time to be self-conscious. 

But suddenly Jack’s face went queer right in the 
middle of some nonsense. It was half a laugh, 
half dismay that twisted his countenance. Quick 
as thought, he pointed up to the second turn of the 
stairs. “That’s a fine old clock!” he exclaimed. 
“Take me up and show it to me.” 

Why they obeyed his command so docilely—put 
their plates down again on the window seat and went 
back up the stairs—they hardly knew. But they 
did go, like lambs. And when they had turned a 
corner and were out of sight of dancers and chaper¬ 
ons Jack stopped, not looking at the clock at all, 
and dropped his eyes to Elsie’s feet. Even Elsie 
laughed when she saw what he was calling attention 
to. In their hurry the girls had forgotten one item, 
and here was Elsie ready to appear in the drawing¬ 
room in her pink satin, swansdown-edged boudoir 
slippers. They were very dainty slippers, quite 
fetching in fact, but they were hardly in harmony 
with the fairy green frock. 


THE STRANGER IN THE GARDEN 191 

“Run back and change while Kate and I admire 
the clock/’ Jack advised. And Elsie ran. 

When she returned the three sat on the window seat 
and ate their long-delayed supper. At first Elsie 
said she wasn’t hungry and couldn’t possibly eat, 
but Jack laughed her out of that. Soon Rose came 
up to join them, carrying her ice, and stopping to 
take dainty tastes as she came. 

“This is the nicest situation of all,” she exclaimed, 
settling down beside Elsie. “And what a view it 
offers. Why, it’s like being in a box at the theatre. 
We saw you and Kate, by the way, at ‘The Blue 
Bird.’ We thought it very grand of you to have a 
whole box to yourselves.” 

Others followed Rose, some of them with plates 
of ice cream. And Kate noticed that the ices and 
the ice cream were in every case in a stage of melting. 
She suspected then that Jack had overheard the 
conversation about the missing Elsie and had col¬ 
lected this little band, encouraging them to eat 
slowly. The realization of his tact and consideration 
wiped out for ever any lurking indignation toward him 
left over from the morning, when he had squirmed at 
the idea of her calling Elsie down to play tennis. 

A few minutes later, when Miss Frazier came out 
into the hall with old Mrs. Van Vorst-Smith who was 
leaving and seemed to require her escort, she saw to 
her great surprise and relief that the very merriest 
part of the party was on the stairs. There were 
eight or nine girls and boys crowded about Kate and 


i 9 2 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

Elsie talking eagerly and interrupting themselves 
with the lightest-hearted laughter. No need to 
worry any more now because her girls were not on 
the floor dancing. This was an even better way of 
getting acquainted. Mrs. Van Vorst-Smith, feeling 
for an instant that she had lost the full attention 
of her hostess, followed her gaze upward. Kate 
was looking down, and their eyes met. Then old 
Mrs. Van Vorst-Smith did an amazing thing. At 
least, the few people who observed it were amazed. 
She made the motion of “ good-night ” with her lips 
to Kate, and blew her a kiss . 

Both her grandchildren stared round-eyed. “I 
say,” Jack whispered, “you have certainly charmed 
my grandmother. What did you ever do to her?” 

He looked at Kate, wonderingly respectful, with 
frankest curiosity. 

When Miss Frazier returned from seeing the old 
lady out of the door, she stood for a minute within 
hearing of the conversation on the stairs. They 
were discussing “The Blue Bird” now, but presently 
it changed to “The King of the Fairies,” a book they 
all had read, apparently. She smiled inwardly, 
well pleased. “Katherine over again,” she told 
herself. But she had to admit, too, that Elsie was 
doing her share in keeping the subject at a high- 
water-mark of intelligent conversation. “Kate is cer¬ 
tainly having an influence,” she reflected, “an even 
finer influence than I could have hoped for.” Then 
she passed on into the drawing-room, trailing her 


THE STRANGER IN THE GARDEN 193 

black scarf more regally than ever since she was so 
honestly proud of both her nieces. 

When the last guest had departed Miss Frazier 
took an arm of each niece and led them toward the 
stairs. “It was all a great success/’ she affirmed. 
“And it was you girls, yourselves, who made it a 
success. Kate, you were what a new girl—at least, 
any new girl worth her salt—ought to be, the belle of 
the ball. And, Elsie, you did me more than credit. I 
am, oh, so very proud of both my girls. Old maiden 
aunt that I am, I felt that I had two lovely daughters. 
Now I advise you to dash to bed and save all discus¬ 
sion of the party until morning. Breakfast is ordered 
for half-past nine to-morrow, so that you may sleep.” 

“But sha’n’t we help you close up?” Elsie offered. 
“I heard you tell Isadora to go to bed.” 

“No, thank you,my dear. I am going to stay down 
here awhile, finishing ‘The King of the Fairies.’ I 
was almost at the last chapter when Mrs. Van Vorst- 
Smith led the procession of arrivals. It is an en¬ 
chanting story, just as you said. Now, good-night.” 

For all its finality the “good-night” was spoken 
with greatest affection. In the last few hours Aunt 
Katherine had flowered into a serenely warm human 
being. Both Kate and Elsie realized the change in 
her, and each, for a different reason, was disturbed 
by it; Kate because now less than ever she under¬ 
stood how her mother ever could have let such a 
lovely person go out of her life; and Elsie—well, 
that concerns the secret of the orchard house. 


CHAPTER XV 


KATE ON GUARD 

TZ ~ATE was waked by the flapping of her window 
draperies. The rain that had held off during 
the evening was upon them now, a wild, windy, heavy 
rain, unusual for July. Kate heard it spattering on 
the floor of the balcony and pattering on the floor in¬ 
side the tall windows. This last would never do. 
Much as she liked the fresh wet wind, full of garden 
and damp earth smells, she must close those windows 
or the room would be damaged. It was pitchy 
dark, and Kate could be guided only by sound and 
the direction from which the wind blew. Somehow 
she got the big door windows closed and fastened, 
simply by the sense of touch, and then turned grate¬ 
fully bedward. But she did not go back to bed that 
night. 

Elsie’s door had blown shut to only a crack, and 
light was coming through that crack. That was 
perhaps none of Kate’s business, but instantly she 
was concerned. She and Elsie had not said “good¬ 
night” to each other, but parted in silence. And 
Kate had gone to sleep wondering just how much 
Elsie was truly hurt by whatever it was that old 
Mrs. Van Vorst-Smith had said to her, and wanting, 

194 


KATE ON GUARD 


195 

but lacking the courage, to go in and sit on the edge 
of her bed to talk it out and comfort her if she 
could. If she had heard Elsie so much as turn in 
bed she would have taken heart; but not a sound had 
come from the other room after the light was out. 
In the end Kate had gone to sleep still undecided 
as to what she ought to do. 

Now the light drew her. Perhaps Elsie had not 
been to sleep at all. Perhaps she was too unhappy 
to sleep. Kate had no idea what time it was, and 
she did not think of the time. Her only anxiety 
was that Elsie might not be angry with her for 
trying to comfort. On bare feet she crossed the 
bathroom floor and pushed at the door. 

The lamp by Elsie’s bed was burning, but she had 
placed her party frock over it to dull its glow, so 
the room was in a queer green light. That was 
what* Kate noticed first. The bed was empty. But 
Kate found Elsie at once, her back turned to her, and 
still unconscious of her presence, at the farther end 
of the room bending over a suitcase which she was 
busy packing. Elsie was fully dressed, even to her 
hat. She was wearing the green silk of their Boston 
jaunt, and the same brown straw hat. It was per¬ 
fectly plain that she was running away, running away 
in the middle of a black, stormy night. 

Kate pushed the door all the way open. “What 
are you doing?” she whispered, loudly. 

Elsie turned upon her. She had been crying as she 
packed, and even in the excitement of the moment 


196 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

Kate reflected how oddly tears and a set, tragic 
face went with the jaunty costume with its brave 
flutter of orange at the neck. 

“You belong in bed,” Elsie whispered back. 
“And any one can see what Em doing.” 

“Yes. Running away!” 

“Yes, running away. And no business of yours.” 

The warrior in Kate straightened. This was a 
clear call to arms. She felt very old and wise. 
She certainly would never let that crying little girl 
go away like this into the rain and dark night. She 
couldn’t expect to walk out right under Kate’s nose! 

“Is that what the note I brought you was about?” 
she asked. “Was it a plan for this?” 

“No. It was telling me not to do this. But I’m 
going to, just the same. He didn’t understand— 
he couldn’t know.” 

Elsie returned to her packing. Kate moved nearer 
to her. 

“Do you think I’m going to stand here and let 
you run away right in the middle of the night like 
this?” she asked, curiously. 

Elsie did not glance up at her. She simply said, 
“Well, what can you do to stop me?” 

“Wake the house, of course. Call Aunt Kather¬ 
ine. Shout for her.” 

Elsie stared at Kate in unfeigned surprise. “You’d 
tell on me?” she asked in an unbelieving tone. “I 
thought you weren’t like that. I thought you were 
decent.” 


KATE ON GUARD 


197 

“I am decent. I don’t tell, not about little things, 
like the key. But this is entirely different. I should 
certainly wake the whole house if you tried to walk 
out with that suitcase.” 

“You wouldn’t.” Elsie lifted the suitcase which 
was filled and closed now, and picking up her hand¬ 
bag from where it lay on the dressing table, took a 
step toward the door. But Kate reached it ahead 
of her. 

“I’ll shout,” Kate warned. 

“Kate Marshall, please, please, please don’t!” 

“I certainly will.” 

Elsie began to cry silently and stood with her 
suitcase in one hand, her bag in the other, and her 
face turned from Kate, ashamed of her tears. Kate’s 
heart softened, but not her determination. 

“Get undressed and into bed, and promise you 
won’t get out again to-night, or I shall go right to 
Aunt Katherine’s room now and tell her,” Kate 
said firmly. 

After a moment of hesitation Elsie began to pull 
off her clothes furiously. In about two minutes she 
was in bed, her face turned toward the wall. In 
silence Kate picked up the cast-off garments Elsie 
had scattered, and put them away. The green suit 
she hung up on a hanger in the closet and the hat 
she put away in the deep hat-drawer. Then the 
suitcase claimed her attention. Bertha had better 
not find it packed and standing by the door in the 
morning. Kate unlatched it and took out the 


198 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

things. “The King of the Fairies’’ lay at the bot¬ 
tom of them all, with a little New Testament. 
Kate put the two books on Elsie’s bedside table under 
the lamp. Still Elsie did not move or speak; she 
might have been asleep for any sign she made that 
she knew what was occupying Kate in the room. 

But Kate spoke to her: “You’ve burned a hole 
in your party dress,” she said. 

It was true. The heat from the electric bulb had 
been strong enough to scorch the flimsy material. 

“No matter,” Elsie muttered from her pillow. 
“I’ll never wear it again, anyway.” 

She had not taken the trouble even to look at the 
damage. That told Kate, if it still needed telling, 
how truly desperate Elsie was. 

“I’m going into my room,” Kate announced, after 
she had hung the ruined party dress away. “But 
don’t think I’m going to bed, for I’m not. I shall 
be sitting up, wide awake, and surely hear you if 
you get up again.” 

Elsie did not answer. 

Kate did not mind that. If never before, now she 
certainly merited Elsie’s wrath. Elsie had hated her 
before without any cause. There was a certain com¬ 
fort to Kate in knowing the cause of her present 
state of mind, a certain satisfaction in no longer 
being scorned for nothing, but for something. She 
could defend herself to herself now. 

But could she defend herself adequately? Had 
she really any business to have so interfered with 


KATE ON GUARD 


199 

Elsie’s plans? Had she any reason so at a leap to 
have become a dyed-in-the-wool tattletale, at least 
to have threatened tattletaling? Yes, she thought 
she could excuse herself. She thought she was more 
than justified. Even so it was a hateful business. 

Kate wrapped herself in her dressing gown and 
sat in a wicker chair by her reading light. She 
did not dare lie in bed to think for fear she would 
drop off to sleep. She gave herself up to pondering 
the situation, but kept an ear cocked all the while for 
the slightest movement in the other room. 

What should she do about things in the morning? 
Even if Elsie had failed to get off to-night, if Aunt 
Katherine were left unwarned, she would certainly 
plan so as not to fail the next time. Why, to¬ 
morrow morning itself Elsie might walk out of the 
house and never come back. If Elsie had any place 
to go to, Kate would not be so worried. But she 
knew that Elsie’s mother’s family, what there was 
of it, was living in Europe, and that not one member 
of it had ever shown the least consciousness of Elsie’s 
existence. Aunt Katherine had told her about that 
and marvelled at it. So Elsie had just no one to take 
her in if she did run away. There was the stranger 
in the garden! But he had told her not to run away. 
Kate was sure Elsie had spoken truth about that note. 
Who was the stranger in the garden? His note had 
turned Elsie tragic, whoever he was. 

There was no way out of it that Kate could see but 
telling. Elsie must be protected against herself. 


200 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 

But half an hour’s more pondering brought Kate 
to the conclusion that she would not tell Aunt 
Katherine. Her whole instinct was against that. 
Aunt Katherine, charming as she was, and kind, was 
after all only an aunt, and an aunt who had said 
herself that she simply could not like Elsie. What 
Elsie needed was a mother. This was work for 
Katherine. Kate had perfect confidence that if 
her mother could talk with Elsie everything would 
come clear for everybody. Light suddenly dawned 
in Kate’s puzzled mind. Katherine might take 
Elsie home with her. They would all three go back 
to Ashland together, and there all would be made 
right for Elsie. Once with Katherine’s arms around 
her shoulders, and Katherine’s gentle, understanding 
eyes looking into hers, Elsie would confide. Kate 
never doubted for an instant that her mother would 
be overjoyed to take the beautiful, unhappy Elsie to 
her heart. Why, since Aunt Katherine had failed 
so to make her happy, and since she did not even 
like this foster-niece, it might become a permanent 
arrangement; Elsie would live with them. She 
would be a sister! 

All this was rather wild dreaming. Kate straight¬ 
ened mentally and pulled herself back to hard facts. 
The facts were simply that Kate could not bring herself 
to the idea of delivering Elsie up to Aunt Katherine for 
judgment or help, either one. Elsie needed a mother 
more than she needed anything else in the world. 
Katherine was a mother. Katherine must come. 


KATE ON GUARD 


201 


And only a few hours ago Kate had felt very far 
away from her mother, very independent of her! 
She smiled now, remembering. Well, she had never 
needed her more. Sitting alone here in the sleeping 
house, with rain and wind at the windows and 
Elsie lying hating her in the next room, Kate ached for 
her mother. 

She decided to write her a special delivery letter. 
That would bring her day after to-morrow, or day 
after to-day rather, for it must be getting toward 
day now. For one day Kate could stand guard 
over Elsie. She was glad of her decision to write 
as soon as she arrived at it. It seemed automatically 
to relieve her from grave responsibility. Besides, 
the composition of the letter would keep her awake. 

And so, mother darling, please come on the very first train. 

Your desperate Kate. 

It had been a long, full letter. She had told 
Katherine just everything that had to do with Elsie 
and her strange behaviour from their very first meet¬ 
ing. When Kate looked up from her signature she 
found the night had passed; dawn was in the room, 
at least the gray light of a rainy morning. 

Kate rose, stretched her cramped limbs, and 
yawned prodigiously. Then she crept to Elsie’s 
door. Elsie was not asleep. Their eyes met. 
There were dark circles under Elsie’s eyes, and her 
face in the gray light was almost paper-white. The 


202 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


girls stared at each other silently. Then Elsie turned 
her head away on the pillow. 

“ How she hates me!” Kate thought, as she stole 
back through the bathroom. “ She’s a dreadful 
hater. I couldn’t hate any one that way, no matter 
what they had done.” 

She turned out the light that was still burning by 
her bed. Then she took a cold shower bath and 
dressed in a fresh dress, the second chintz curtain 
one. She brushed her hair vigorously. 

“Some difference,” she reflected, “between the 
party Kate and the morning-after one. Too bad I 
haven’t a magic cap for day-times!” 

Perhaps she needed one especially to-day. For 
tired, sleepless people are rarely pretty people; and 
Kate’s eyes were almost as dark-rimmed as Elsie’s. 

Her toilet completed, she stole again to Elsie’s 
door. Again their eyes met. 

“If I were you I’d go to sleep,” Kate whispered. 
Elsie’s pallor bothered her. But Elsie did not deign 
to answer. 

Kate, back in her room, with over four hours be¬ 
fore breakfast stretching away ahead of her, curled 
up on the foot of the bed with “The King of the 
Fairies” in her hands. She opened it just any¬ 
where, much as one opens conversation with a friend 
just anywhere. It is the presence you want. And 
the presence of the soul in this book did not fail 
her now. How it drove walls backward and pushed 
roofs skyward! And as for out-of-doors, it made 


KATE ON GUARD 


203 

that boundless, lifting veils and veils of air dis¬ 
closing Fairyland or Paradise, in any case the realler 
than real. 

Kate was withdrawing from the chintz-curtained 
Kate on the bed. She was rising up out of that 
drowsy figure. She was floating. But the flowers 
from the chintz were still decking her, only they 
were living flowers now, smelling all the sweeter for 
the rain soaking their petals. And the birds from 
the chintz were with her, too, changed to living 
birds, soaring, floating, drifting with her, singing 
shrilly in the rain. The mysterious, many-coloured 
portals of sleep were opening to her far off beyond 
the last lifted veil of air. 

It was nine-fifteen before she woke. 


CHAPTER XVI 


ONE END OF THE STRING 


T>REAKFAST was served in the little blue-and- 
white breakfast-room. A fire burned there cheer¬ 
fully in the grate, making it possible to leave the doors 
open on to the rain-beaten terrace. The storms of the 
night had subsided into a steady, hard downpour. 

“What a day!” Miss Frazier exclaimed when she 
appeared. 

Kate had come into the room just ahead of her. 
Moved by an impulse of affection she went to her 
aunt and kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you for 
that beautiful party,” she said. “It was gorgeous.” 

Miss Frazier was pleased. “Thank you, my dear, 
for paying back so, in being happy about it, the little 
that is done for you. ‘It is more blessed to give than 
to receive’ may be, but the art of receiving gra¬ 
ciously is a rare and beautiful accomplishment. I 
hope Elsie’s experience with Mrs. Van Vorst-Smith 
didn’t entirely keep the evening from being ‘gor¬ 
geous’ for her, too. Where is she?” 

“Dressing, I think.” 

At this moment Miss Frazier was summoned to 
the telephone. “The same gentleman who wouldn’t 
give his name yesterday,” Isadora informed her. 


204 



ONE END OF THE STRING 205 

“ Don’t wait for me, Kate. Tm not having grape¬ 
fruit.” 

When Aunt Katherine returned it was plain to 
see that she was greatly stirred, though trying hard 
to be calm and matter-of-fact. 

“I shall have to go to town,” she told Kate. 
“And I shall be gone all day, probably until rather 
late to-night. In spite of the rain I think I had 
better take the car.” 

Then Elsie came in. She sat down languidly at 
the breakfast table and leaned her cheek on her 
hand. Everything that Effie offered she refused. 

“Aren’t you going to have any breakfast at all?” 
Miss Frazier asked. 

“No. I thought I could eat. But when I see 
things I know I can’t. I think I’ll be excused if I 
may.” 

Miss Frazier looked at her keenly. “I am afraid 
you are ill. Come, let me feel your forehead. Yes, 
it is hot. You have a temperature almost certainly. 
And the shadows under your eyes! Is this what a 
party does to you? What a pity that I must leave 
for Boston at once.” 

She turned to the maid Effie. “Effie, tell Bertha 
to get Doctor Hanscom on the telephone and ask 
him to come over here before office hours. Then she 
is to help Elsie back to bed.” 

“Bed! Oh, no. Please! Please, Aunt Kather¬ 
ine!” 

“Why, yes. Bed isn’t so terrible as all that! 


206 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

You may read or knit, until Doctor Hanscom arrives 
and gives other orders, anyway. Kate will sit with 
you so that you won’t be lonely. Yes, indeed, you 
must go to bed.” 

Elsie was very much distressed at this turn of 
affairs. Kate saw dismay in her face, and she easily 
guessed the reason. Of course, being tucked up in 
bed and getting the attention and care of an invalid 
would make running away to-day almost impossible. 
But there was no question of Miss Frazier’s being 
obeyed. She expected obedience and she got it. 

When Elsie had left the room Miss Frazier forced 
herself to take up conversation lightly and naturally 
for the remainder of the meal, but Kate did not fail 
to notice that her fingers shook slightly as she lifted 
her toast and that her dark eyes were unusually 
bright. Evidently the “gentleman who will not 
give his name” had had some news of importance. 
Kate felt confident that that gentleman was the 
detective, Mr. O’Brien. 

“I finished your book last night,” Miss Frazier 
was saying. “I understand your enthusiasm. It 
is literature and much more. The author must have 
deep and even esoteric wisdom. One wonders very 
much who and what he is, the author. But whoever 
he is, even if this book is all he has to show, he is a 
great man. Has it occurred to you, Kate, how much, 
how extraordinarily, like your mother, Hazel, the 
girl in the story, is? It might be a direct portrait.” 

Kate laughed. “Oh, have you discovered that, 


ONE END OF THE STRING 207 

too? Even Mother had to admit it—that in looks, 
anyway, Hazel was exactly herself when she was 
that age. But I say she is still like Hazel, old as 
she is!” 

“Thirty-six isn’t exactly aged, you know. One 
might very well keep some remnants of looks even 
until then.” Aunt Katherine was smiling. “But 
it is a strange coincidence how a person of the ima¬ 
gination can so echo a person in life. I was fairly 
startled last night when I realized how vivid the 
resemblance was.” 

But though Kate heard and replied to all her 
aunt’s remarks during that breakfast, her mind was 
most of the time on other matters, and if Miss 
Frazier could have known, Kate under her calm ex¬ 
terior was hiding a heart as perturbed as her own. 

Kate was glad when Miss Frazier rose. She as¬ 
sured her that she was very well able to amuse her¬ 
self at home this rainy day, and that she would do 
everything for Elsie that she could. Yes, she would 
see to it that she stayed in bed! Yes, she would 
read to her, if Elsie felt like listening. Yes, Aunt 
Katherine was not to worry. And so Miss Frazier 
departed, and Kate was left virtually in charge of 
the house, the responsibility for things quite hers. 

Of course, Kate knew perfectly well that Elsie 
would not want her to sit with her, no need even to 
ask about that. And Kate must hurry to send her 
telegram. Beyond the portals of sleep she had de¬ 
cided, or possibly it had been decided for her, that 


208 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


the special delivery letter would not make things 
happen quickly enough. Katherine must be wired 
for. She was needed to-day. Kate had waked with 
this determination full-blown. But how could she 
risk leaving the house now to send the wire, with 
Elsie in the desperate mood that was so obvious? 
How could Kate be sure that Bertha would not help 
Elsie to run away in her absence? Bertha adored 
Elsie, and Kate herself had reason to know that 
when Elsie pleaded it was easier to do her wish than 
not. She realized, of course, that a telegram may be 
given over the telephone; but her inexperience and 
shyness made her doubt her ability in such a compli¬ 
cated procedure. Besides, the bill would be charged 
to Aunt Katherine in that case. 

“I shall just have to chance it,” she decided. 
“Elsie needn’t know I am out of the house at all, 
and I can hurry.” She would run up to her room 
and get her cape and hat as quietly as possible. 
She would have to slip down into the kitchen then 
and borrow an umbrella from Julia. 

But Bertha, administering to Elsie, heard the door 
of Kate’s closet when a surprising little gust of wind 
banged it shut while Kate was inside reaching for 
her hat. When Kate had fumbled for the knob and 
opened the door, Bertha had come into her room. 
At once Kate noticed that Bertha, too, was labouring 
under great excitement. Her cheeks were on fire 
and she was simply quivering with suppressed emo¬ 
tion of some sort. 


ONE END OF THE STRING 209 

“Oh, Miss Kate,” she cried, nervously, looking at 
the hat in Kate’s hand. “Are you going out?” 

Well, no help for it now. Elsie had heard, of 
course. But Kate was much bothered. “Yes, on 
an errand. I’ll be gone almost no time at all, 
though.” This she spoke loudly, meaning that Elsie 
should not miss it. 

“Oh, if you are really going into the village 
could you do an errand for Miss Elsie?” 

Ho, ho! Was this the thin ruse Elsie meant to 
use, to get her out of the way ? 

“Perhaps,” Kate said, noncommittally. 

“That fixes everything nicely then.” Bertha took 
a deep breath of relief. “I would go myself but Miss 
Frazier expects me to see the doctor when he comes, 
in order to report to her. And then there is all my 
work. Wait a minute.” 

Bertha hurried back into Elsie’s room and Kate 
heard a low murmuring between them. When she 
returned she had Elsie’s purse in her hand. “Here 
is some money. Miss Elsie says to use only that 
that’s tied in the handkerchief.” 

Sol Elsie was letting her pocketbook go. Last 
night, Kate remembered, Elsie had taken it when 
starting toward the door. And running away she 
would surely need it. Kate recalled her first motion 
to decline the purse and tuck the handkerchief with 
the coin tied in its corner into her own. With Elsie’s 
pocketbook in her possession, Elsie was just so much 
the safer. 


210 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


“What does she want?” 

“Half a dozen eggs. A head of lettuce. Some 
bread.” 

Kate stared. Bertha stared back at her, ner¬ 
vously. But Kate restrained any exclamations and 
simply nodded. When Bertha realized that she was 
not going to be questioned, relief like sunshine over¬ 
spread her flushed face. 

“And will you be as quick as possible?” she asked. 

Again Kate was pleasantly surprised. “Yes, Fll 
be as quick as I can,” she agreed. “If Elsie will 
promise to stay in bed until luncheon time.” 

Bertha looked at her in genuine astonishment at 
that. “But of course. Miss Frazier has ordered 
that she spend the day in bed.” 

“No, she must promise me herself. You tell her.” 

Elsie had heard. She called out now, “Yes, I 
promise. And do please hurry, Kate.” 

Kate was deeply relieved. Now she could absent 
herself from the house without fear of finding Elsie 
flown when she returned. “And whatever you do, 
Kate Marshall, and whatever they say about it, 
don’t let them charge those things at the store to 
Aunt Katherine,” Elsie called again. 

“You haven’t an umbrella,” Bertha said, bringing 
her Elsie’s, a gay green silk one with an ivory handle. 
“It’s a wild day for July, and I’m not at all certain 
Miss Frazier would like your going out like this. 
If you could only have the car—but it’s gone to town 
with her.” 


211 


ONE END OF THE STRING 

“Yes, I know. And you needn’t feel responsible. 
I have an errand on my own account, you know.” 

But Kate did wonder much about Elsie’s errand. 
“I think,” she mused, “it’s a wild-goose chase Aunt 
Katherine is on in town, and those detectives, too. 
Where they might do some good, and find some clues, 
is right here. Who was that man in the garden? 
Why all this buying of groceries ? If there is a snarl 
of some sort that needs unravelling, and if Elsie has 
anything to do with it, the end of the string is right 
here. But how do I know the snarl ought to be un¬ 
ravelled by detectives—that it’s any of their business ? 
Oh, heavens! I must run to the telegraph office. 
Mother is terribly needed this very minute.” 

At the Western Union Station she did not study 
long over the wording of her message. Time was too 
precious, she felt, for even a minute’s delay, if Kath¬ 
erine was to catch the noon train from Middletown. 

A mix-up here come first train nobody sick or dead Kate. 

She was aware that those ten words would worry 
her mother unspeakably. But how, in the limits of 
a telegram (Kate had never conceived of the possi¬ 
bility of a telegram being over ten words in length!), 
was she to persuade her mother to take the next 
train if she was not to be worried ? No, the only way 
to make absolutely sure of her coming was to frighten 
her into it. 

The man who took the message looked at Kate 
curiously. He knew perfectly well who Kate was 


212 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 

and wondered very much about the “ mix-up.” He 
thought Kate peculiarly self-contained for a young 
lady who found herself in a situation that necessi¬ 
tated that message. If he had only known, how¬ 
ever, Kate’s calm exterior was entirely assumed. 
She was more excited, perhaps, than she had ever 
been in her life before, and full of presentiments of 
even greater excitement to come. Sending the wire, 
though, was a great relief. In a few minutes Kath¬ 
erine herself, ’way off in quiet Ashland, would be con¬ 
cerned in the affair. With Katherine once “in it”, 
Kate was assured things must somehow turn out 
right. 

Now for those puzzling groceries. 

When she came out of Holt and Holt’s with her 
purchases, Jack Denton suddenly appeared at her 
shoulder. He was without an umbrella, but in a rain¬ 
coat and felt hat that required none. 

“May I walk along with you?” he asked. 

Kate was very glad to see him. His high spirits 
brought relief from the strain and confusion in her 
mind. Gallantly, and with the air of courtesy that 
was so delightful in him, he took her bundles from 
her and then her umbrella. With laughter and ex¬ 
change of party remembrances they started off to¬ 
gether through the rain toward home. 

But before they had gone half the distance Jack 
turned serious. 

“Do you know,” he said, “at our dinner last night 
(Mother gave a dinner before your dance) some of us 


ONE END OF THE STRING 


213 

decided to go on strike, to stand up for our own ideas 
more practically against our elders. Younger gener¬ 
ation stuff. We all used to like Elsie tremendously, 
and now we are going to treat her just exactly as 
though nothing had happened, if she’ll let us. I 
think she will, too. She was all right last night.” 

Kate turned to look up at Jack under the umbrella. 
The brown eyes that returned her look had lost their 
easy laughter and were earnest with the glow of a 
cause . 

“Granny’s had her way long enough,” he contin¬ 
ued. “Our mothers and fathers never really cared a 
bit, you know. It’s just those more ancient ones. 
They barely survived the shock. You see their 
daughters and sons had been playing around with 
him, and any one of their daughters might have 
married him. Granny says her grandson (meaning 
me) is going to have the protection her daughter 
didn’t have (meaning Mother). It’s really just a joke. 
And we only humoured ’em because they were so 
rabid. Now we’re sorry we were so soft. I wanted 
to tell you.” 

“I don’t understand,” Kate said, quickly. “Not 
one word. Can’t you explain better? What happened 
that was so awful ? What was the thing that shocked 
them so? And what has it to do with Elsie?” 

Until this minute she had not wanted such infor¬ 
mation, when it came, to come from outside. She 
had felt that to learn that way would be disloyal of 
her. But now that her whole mind was turned to 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


214 

helping Elsie she wanted to know all she could. She 
wanted to get hold of the end of the tangle, any way, 
and perhaps then there would be some chance of 
straightening it out. The information that Jack 
was apparently able to give her would surely con¬ 
stitute that end; once having that in her fingers she 
might unravel snarl after snarl for herself. 

Jack, however, was not prepared for her questions. 
He whistled, startled. “Don’t you know what the 
fuss has been about?” he asked. “Don’t you know 
about anything? I thought you were only pretend¬ 
ing yesterday.” 

“No, truly. Not a thing. Aunt Katherine was 
surprised that I didn’t know, too. But she wouldn’t 
tell me. You tell me.” 

“Why, it doesn’t seem fair. I thought, of course, 
you knew. But you did know there was something ? ” 

“Yes, almost the first minute I got here. Elsie 
acted so queerly. And then she said she hardly knew 
you. And all the time there you were living right 
next door. It was puzzling. Now tell me. 1 ’ 

“Well, if they want you to live in ignorance it’s 
hardly up to me to enlighten you, is it?” Jack was 
very ill at ease. 

“Your grandmother would have told me if I had 
let her. And Elsie herself acts as though I knew. 
She has accused me several times. I’ve wired to 
my mother to come. I am frightened about Elsie. 
She is in danger of doing—oh, something that would 
be dreadful for Aunt Katherine, and for herself, too. 


ONE END OF THE STRING 215 

Aunt Katherine is away for the day. The more I 
know the more I can help. Please tell me just 
everything you can.” 

“ I hate doing that. But if it helps you to help- 

Anyway, it’s only fair to you. You ought to know 
what everybody else knows. Elsie's father, Nick 
Frazier, is a thief. He stole some securities, or some¬ 
thing, from Miss Frazier.” 

Kate did not even exclaim. She had slowed her 
steps for the great revelation and was now gazing 
straight ahead. It took some seconds for her to re¬ 
act at all to what Jack had said. 

Jack paced on beside her, protecting her from the 
gusty rain by dexterous manipulations of the green 
silk umbrella. 

“That wouldn't have been enough in itself to make 
them so rabid, though,” he went on, worriedly. 
“You see they blame your aunt some. She adopted 
him, you know—anyway, let him call her ‘aunt'— 
and took him into her home and prepared him herself 
for Harvard. He wasn't even in school. He was 
working in some mill in spite of being just a kid, 
fourteen or something like that, when she discovered 
him. He hadn't any family—didn’t even know who 
his family were, had been brought up in some institu¬ 
tion or other. Well, Miss Frazier treated him just 
as though he belonged to her, gave him her name and 
everything. This is all an old story in this village. 
Rose and I were brought up on it. Then when he 
was in college Miss Frazier expected him to be asked 



216 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

everywhere to holiday affairs here, and she gave 
parties in her house. She acted just as though he 
were a Frazier really. The young people liked him, 
though it seems he was something of a diamond in 
the rough, you know, ’spite of Harvard and all. 
But the parents grumbled. That was our grand¬ 
mothers, you see. They only let it go on because 
your aunt was a Frazier and could do almost any¬ 
thing, they being such a fine old New England family. 
The parents always said no good would come of it, 
though. ‘Blood would tell/” 

“Yes, yes,” Kate agreed, tremulously. “That’s 
what your grandmother said last night.” 

“What! Still mumbling over that? Talk about 
fixed ideas! When he stole those securities—he did 
it while your aunt was abroad or somewhere—and 
she let him go to prison for it, everybody said, ‘Now 
Katherine Frazier’s learned her lesson, I guess.’ 
That was two years ago or more. But then right 
away his wife died, and Elsie came to live here with 
Miss Frazier, and Miss Frazier expected us all to 
treat her just as we always had when she visited be¬ 
fore, just as though she were Miss Frazier’s regular 
niece and not the daughter of a convict who doesn’t 
even know his own name. That got the old folks’ 
goat right enough. They said they’d tried that once 
on their own children. But would they let it be per¬ 
petrated on their grandchildren? You can bet, no. 
And there was a great to-do. And, well, we haven’t 
been exactly cordial to Elsie.” 


ONE END OF THE STRING 


217 


Kate said nothing when he stopped. Jack won¬ 
dered what she was thinking. He felt very hot and 
ashamed. “But that’s all past now,” he said. 
“Elsie isn’t to blame. Why should she suffer?” 

“Now I’ll keep my mouth shut until she speaks,” 
he told himself. 

But Kate did not break the silence until they came 
to the foot of the steps leading up to Miss Frazier’s 
front door. Then she looked up at Jack as she took 
her bundles from him. “Thanks for telling me 
everything like that,” she said, gravely. “I think 
it’s all pretty hard on Aunt Katherine and just simply 
awful for Elsie. No wonder she thought I was a 
beast. Why, I called her a ‘thief’ herself, and said 
we were being followed by that detective as though 
we were thieves. Now I understand a lot of things! 
I’ve—I’ve—just wallowed in breaks. I hope my 
mother gets here to-night.” 

“Do you play Mah Jong?” Jack asked quickly. 
“Why don’t you and Elsie come over to play this 
afternoon ? There’s nothing much we can do out-of- 
doors.” 

“Elsie’s sick in bed, so I’m afraid we can’t. Thank 
you for carrying the things—and for everything.” 
In spite of her perturbation she flashed her peculiar 
Chinese smile when Jack raised his hat. What nice 
manners he had! 

Jack himself, walking slowly back to his own door, 
was obviously deep in thought. But in the midst of 
worrying over the ethics of what he had done in going 


218 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


into all that unpleasant business with Kate, he sud¬ 
denly thought, “She isn’t nearly so pretty as 
last night. But it’s awfully jolly when she smiles, 
and I guess when she isn’t being pestered with sicken¬ 
ing scandal and such 6tuff she smiles a lot.” 


CHAPTER XVII 


INTO THE ORCHARD HOUSE 

TSADORA opened the door for Kate as she came up 
the steps. There was a yellow envelope in her 
hand. 

“A telegram for you, Miss Kate. It came just 
a minute ago. Oh, I do hope there’s no bad 
news.” 

Kate caught a glimpse of Julia wavering at the 
farthest end of the hall in shadow/ and there was 
Effie just inside the drawing-room, deliberately 
watching while she opened the envelope. 

“I’m sure it’s not bad news,” Kate informed these 
anxious friends of her mother’s as she tore open the 
end of the envelope. “I expected a wire.” She 
felt some importance in saying that, and she was 
glad to clear the air, for it was charged with keenest 
apprehension. 

Kate’s message had gone and Katherine’s reply 
arrived all within an hour. Katherine had certainly 
not hesitated over a decision. Kate nodded as she 
read and smiled. 

Am autoing to Ludlow Junction to catch back way express 
Oakdale five-five whatever situation keep cool and brave in a 
few hours Mother will be with you rejoiced you’re not sick. K. 


219 



220 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


Katherine certainly had not counted the words! 

When Kate looked up, the anxious watchers had 
vanished, dispersed by her smile as she read. She 
sat down in a chair standing against the wall. Her 
arms dropped at her sides and she leaned her head 
against the high-carved back of the chair, crushing a 
little her mother’s best hat. For the minute she was 
too absorbed in her own thoughts and too fatigued— 
the fatigue that is apt to come with sudden complete 
relief of mind—to remember such an item as a hat. 

A step on the stair made her look up. Bertha was 
hurrying down, rustling in a raincoat, a scarf tied 
over her head. 

“You’re here,” she exclaimed. “I saw you com¬ 
ing, from a window upstairs. Are these the things ? ” 

Kate nodded, and Bertha took the packages and 
pocketbook from the floor where Kate had carelessly 
dropped them to tear open her telegram. Bearing 
them carefully she went away through the drawing¬ 
room. 

“Well, she can’t get to the kitchen that way,” 
Kate mused, hardly caring. “And why the rain¬ 
coat? Oh, well, what’s the use of trying to puzzle 
anything out any more? Mother’s coming, Moth¬ 
er’s coming, Mother’s coming!” 

After a little while, yawning and half asleep, she 
wandered into Aunt Katherine’s own sitting-room— 
a graceful, comfortable little retreat tucked away in 
an isolated corner of the big house. The out¬ 
standing feature there was an oil painting of Kate’s 


INTO THE ORCHARD HOUSE 221 

mother at the age of sixteen in a blue party frock 
standing against dark velvet portieres. It was a 
painting by Hopkinson in his earlier manner, executed 
with finish and most delicate feeling. The painting 
was one of Miss Frazier’s most valuable possessions, 
and Kate had surmised, when her aunt had shown it 
to her, one of the dearest. Certainly it was a paint¬ 
ing with a spell over it, a spell of beauty and some¬ 
thing besides, unnamable and illusive. Perhaps it 
was the spirit of youth which the artist had with 
such genius caught there, that gave it its magic. 

Kate unfolded an afghan that lay conveniently on 
the foot of the sofa beneath the portrait, and curling 
herself up under it, settled down for a nap. She felt 
perfectly safe in losing herself for the time because 
Elsie had given her promise to stay in bed until 
luncheon. 

But at one o’clock Bertha brought down the news 
that the doctor had ordered Elsie to remain in bed 
all afternoon, too. She was asleep now, and Bertha 
thought she would sleep for several hours. Her tem¬ 
perature had gone down to normal and she was com¬ 
fortable. Later, when she woke, Bertha would take 
her up a light meal. 

Lunching alone for Kate was a rather dreary pro¬ 
cedure in spite of the coziness of the breakfast-room 
where Miss Frazier had thoughtfully ordered the meal 
served, and the merry little fire crackling on the 
hearth. Kate had had a good sleep and she was now 
so rested in body and mind that she could think about 



222 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


things with some clarity. She leaned her elbow on 
the table and her chin in her hand and regarded the 
fire as though it were her companion at the meal. 

Elsie’s father was a thief! How would it feel to 
have your father a thief and in prison and everybody 
knowing it? Kate had never known a father, so she 
found it difficult to put herself in Elsie’s place. But 
suppose it were her mother ? Oh, supposing that was 
too painful, and certainly it wasn’t like that for Elsie. 
Perhaps Elsie cared as little for her father as she had 
for her mother. (Kate had never recovered from 
the horrid shock of that disclosure.) She certainly 
never mentioned him. But she was not allowed to 
mention him. What had Aunt Katherine’s letter 
said on that point? “ Nick’s name is not mentioned 
here, either by Elsie or the servants,”—something 
like that. But imagine consenting to forget your 
father for any one! No, of course Elsie had no such 
devotion for her father as Kate’s for her mother. 
Not likely. No use to try to compare, then. Be¬ 
sides, the mere notion was altogether too painful. 

Let’s begin at the beginning, though. Why had 
Elsie bought bread and eggs and lettuce and nuts 
which she surely had no use for herself; and why 
had she been so urgent that Kate should buy more 
to-day? Surely she didn’t expect to take such perish¬ 
able things with her in her flight from Aunt Kather¬ 
ine’s house! There had been no sign of eatables 
when Kate unpacked the runaway’s suitcase last 
night. Oh! An idea! Had Elsie planned to run 



INTO THE ORCHARD HOUSE 


223 

away only as far as the orchard house, and was the 
food supply stored there? Was that the mystery 
about the orchard house? Had she discovered a 
secret room or something and was planning to live in 
it like a hermit without any one’s knowing? Kate 
built up quite-a plot around that idea. It would be 
exciting and fascinating to live right under your 
guardian’s nose while that guardian was scouring the 
country for you. But in spite of the possibilities of 
this story-like mystery, Kate finally let it go as an 
explanation. It was too far-fetched. 

A better solution! Had Nick, her father, escaped 
from prison? Elsie was shielding him, perhaps. 
Why, of course, she was hiding him in the orchard 
house. Kate’s heart began to hammer. Stupid, 
not to have thought of that at once, just the minute 
Jack told her about Elsie’s father being a thief. All 
the food had been for him. The book she couldn’t 
afford to buy, too! She had wanted it for him. 
How very simple it all was! And they were going to 
escape together. They would escape into Canada 
or somewhere. No, vague memories of something 
called “extradition papers” came to mind. They 
would simply hide themselves in the crowds of some 
big city. They would vanish. Oh, well, from the 
very first Elsie had been a vanishing comrade. 
When she ran away with her father she would vanish 
for good. 

Now, how did the detective work into this solution 
of the puzzle ? Suddenly there was a snag. If Nick 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


224 

had escaped from prison, wouldn't state detectives 
be on his trail? Mr. O'Brien, Aunt Katherine had 
told her, was a private detective. And if Nick had 
really escaped from prison surely Aunt Katherine 
would not in any way be concerned in finding him. 
That would be simply a matter for the police. 

Kate turned her eyes uneasily to the open door, 
almost expecting to see a plain-clothes man spying 
upon her from the rain out there. But there was 
only the drenched garden and beyond, the orchard, 
wreathed in a haze of wet weather. 

One more snag: surely if Nick had escaped from 
prison it would have got into the papers, and someone 
in Oakdale have seen it. Then Jack would know, 
and he had not even hinted at such a thing. 

But now for the most important consideration of 
all: the stranger in the garden who had given her the 
note for Elsie last night ? Who was he, and where did 
he come in ? The reasonable answer was that he was 
Nick himself, Elsie's father, the thief, the man who 
had stolen from his own benefactress. But Kate 
did not harbour this idea for the fraction of a second. 
That voice was not the voice of such a one, and such a 
one would hardly be quoting from “The King of the 
Fairies." 

Deep down in her heart, deep beyond reason, Kate 
had connected that stranger in the garden with what 
Elsie had said about fairies in the orchard house. 
This man himself, who had given her the note, was a 
human being, of course, She didn't go so far as to 


INTO THE ORCHARD HOUSE 225 

think him unearthly; but he might very well know 
about those fairies who “were in it somehow.” He 
seemed a person who would indeed be likely to know. 
Kate was ready to connect that stranger with any 
mystery so long as it was a pleasant mystery. With 
an unpleasant mystery—never. His note had told 
Elsie not to run away; Elsie herself had said so. 
But he had known that she meant to run away. 
That was apparent. Where had he come from out 
of the wind last night ? 

What of that light she had seen in the orchard 
house her first night here? Those three open win¬ 
dows? That closing door in the second story— 
closing as though a knob had been turned ? 

Oh, there were just too many things to think of and 
to fit in. The shortest cut to clearing up some of the 
mystery and giving her mother a starting point to 
work from with Elsie when she should get here at five 
o’clock to-night was to explore the orchard house 
now, right away. There was her heart whacking at 
her sides again! Yes, but she must do it, escaped 
convict or not. That was the first step to be taken. 
She had the end of the string—Jack Denton had 
given her that—the orchard house came next, made 
the first knot to be untangled. 

“No, no dessert, thank you.” You couldn’t eat 
with your heart hammering like that, could you? 
She walked to the door. The rain was stopping, had 
almost entirely stopped. The key was upstairs, 
back in the drawer of her dressing table where she 


226 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


had replaced it after wringing it from Elsie yesterday. 
If she went for it now Elsie might hear and again 
weep her into a promise to keep away from the or¬ 
chard house. The key had been only a matter of form, 
anyway. There were always the windows. Kate 
was sure they couldn’t all be locked. She would try 
getting in that way before she bothered about the key. 

She glanced down at her rubber-soled canvas ties. 
No need for rubbers. No need for a sweater or 
umbrella, either: the little showers of rain blowing 
down from trees and bushes would do her chintz no 
harm. 

She crossed the terrace, hoping neither Elsie nor 
Bertha was looking from a window overhead, and 
walked through the orchard straight to the orchard 
house. Before trying the windows, better try the 
door. That was only common sense. The latch 
lifted under her fingers! Had the house always stood 
open like this, and all that fuss about the key! She 
pushed the door softly open and went in. 

“Something to do with fairies,” Elsie had said. 
Kate remembered the words as she crossed the thresh¬ 
old. And she felt surely as though it might easily 
have something to do with fairies; she might have 
been stepping into Fairyland itself for the eerie sensa¬ 
tion that crossing the threshold gave her. 

She left the door open behind her, and a gusty wet 
wind followed her like a companion. It filled the 
hall with the pungent scent of the syringa bush by 
the step. 



INTO THE ORCHARD HOUSE 227 

There was nothing in the hall but a little oblong 
table standing against the wall at the foot of the stairs, 
a table with curly legs and a carved top on which 
stood an empty card tray, and hung above the table 
was a narrow long mirror in a gilded frame. 

Kate looked into the mirror. How many, many 
times it had reflected her mother’s face. How very 
unlike Katherine her daughter was, hair bobbed so 
straight, rather slanting narrow eyes, full lips, 
freckles across the nose! Kate surveyed this image 
with her usual slight sense of annoyance upon meet¬ 
ing it in a mirror. She imagined Katherine, a 
Katherine of her own age, looking over her shoulder 
in the glass, their two heads together. It was the 
Katherine of the portrait, dark curly head, wide 
misty eyes, olive cheeks ever so delicately touched 
with rose. 

Oh! Had that face actually gleamed out there 
for an instant? Her mental vision had been so clear 
that she could not be sure it had not, just for a flash, 
taken actual form. 

Well, if the Katherine of sixteen years ago had 
joined her now and was going to accompany her in 
her exploration of the orchard house, so much the 
better. Kate had always longed for a girl comrade 
more than for anything else in the world. Come, 
let’s pretend she had one at last, Katherine at fifteen. 

First the parlour. It opened on the right. The 
door stuck. Kate pushed with her knee and lifted 
up x>n the knob simultaneously. It opened ex- 


228 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


plosively. And a door up in the second story some¬ 
where opened in sympathy with it. Kate stood very 
still, listening. The jarring of the walls was the cause, 
of course; but even with this explanation accepted, 
it was creepy. 

The little parlour was stuffy, as all closed rooms are 
stuffy. But almost at once the syringa-scented air 
from the open front door had remedied that; it was 
so much more vital than the smell of dust and mildew. 
But why think of the parlour as “little,” for by any 
ordinary standards it was certainly a good-sized room. 
Only in comparison with Aunt Katherine’s spacious 
drawing-room did Kate feel it now small and quaint. 

The furniture was much as it had been left when 
Grandfather Frazier died and the house was closed. 
But the books were gone from the low bookcases that 
lined the walls. Those Aunt Katherine had sent to 
her niece, and Kate had grown up in their company. 

The bookcases, a Franklin stove with a worn low 
bench in front of it, a big square library table between 
the windows, some oil paintings on the walls (Kate 
guessed some of these to be Aunt Katherine’s work), 
a comfortable-looking but very unfashionable chintz- 
covered sofa, and several very shabby, very welcom¬ 
ing easy chairs with deep seats and wide arms and 
curving backs—that was the parlour. 

And the fifteen-year-old Katherine Frazier had 
gone in ahead of Kate. She was moving about the 
room, poking up the fire (the fire that didn’t exist) 
in the grate, throwing her school books on the sofa, 


INTO THE ORCHARD HOUSE 229 

reading absorbedly curled up with her feet under her 
in the deepest chair by the window, making toast at 
the coals in the grate while the blue teapot kept it¬ 
self warm on the stove’s top. Katherine had told 
Kate about this room, how she loved it and what she 
did in it. Her father was there usually in the picture, 
too, and often Aunt Katherine. But somehow Kate 
imagined neither of them now. 

What a merry, comfortable, spirited room it was. 
Its spirit had been created by that dark-eyed girl. 
And the smell of the syringa! Now Kate knew why 
her mother could never get by the syringa bush at 
the corner of Professor Hart’s lawn without stopping 
for deep breaths when the syringa was in flower. 

The dining-room was across the hall. The dining 
table was long and narrow, the handicraft of Great¬ 
grandfather Frazier. It was curly maple and mirror¬ 
like with the polishings of many years. Close at 
one end two chairs were drawn up to it. Several 
more stood with their backs against the wall. Did 
Grandfather Frazier and Katherine sit close together 
like that at the end of the long table those years they 
lived alone? Kate wondered. Yes, she was sure 
they did; for there was the Katherine of her ima¬ 
gination pouring tea for her father and handing it to 
him with a sweet, affectionate smile. No need for 
Nora to come in from the kitchen to pass it. This 
father and daughter could reach each other. 

The kitchen failed to hold Kate’s attention. She 
missed Katherine there. The young Katherine had 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


230 

not liked housework. Indeed, it was still a burden 
to her, however gracefully she carried the burden. 
Perhaps that was why Kate could not find her in the 
kitchen. 

If stepping across the threshold into this empty 
house had stirred Kate’s imagination and made her 
feel the possibility of fairies hiding somewhere in the 
apparent emptiness, going up the stairs stirred it 
even more. 

It was a steep, rather narrow, little staircase, 
painted black and with the wooden treads deeply 
worn by generations of feet. And right in the very 
middle of her ascent, on the seventh stair, to be 
precise, there happened to her a thing that had some¬ 
times happened before but never quite so definitely. 
She thought and felt that she had done this all before, 
that she had come up these stairs on exactly the er¬ 
rand she was on now; she remembered herself on this 
identical stair, with her hand on this identical portion 
of the railing. More than that she knew exactly 
what was going to happen to her when she reached the 
top—why shouldn’t she know when she had ex¬ 
perienced it all before? 

But even as she felt this and in fact knew it, her 
foot had left that seventh stair and the memory had 
vanished. Now she only had a memory of a mem¬ 
ory, or to be exact not even that. She only remem¬ 
bered that she had remembered. The instant itself, 
the connection, was lost. 

She looked into the guest-room first. It was a 


INTO THE ORCHARD HOUSE 231 

pretty room in spite of the absence of curtains and 
bedding. The furniture was painted a creamy yel¬ 
low. Katherine had painted it a few days before her 
marriage. By the window there was a dainty little 
writing table with pens and blotters and even ink- 
bottle conveniently placed. But the ink had been 
long evaporated and the pens were rusty. Above 
the bed there hung, passe-partouted in white, a 
flower-wreathed quotation. Had Aunt Katherine 
or her mother painted the flowers and illuminated 
the letters ? The flowers were morning-glories, very 
realistically done, and the quotation from “Mac¬ 
beth”: “Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of 
care.” 

“Morning-glories are incongruous with the words,” 
Kate mused, smiling. She felt more sophisticated 
than the fifteen-year-old Katherine who had ad¬ 
mired this crude bit of art enough to hang it in the 
guest-room, who perhaps was even herself its perpe¬ 
trator. “Yes, morning-glories are incongruous with 
the words.” 

“Are they. Why?” 

“Perhaps they aren’t,” Kate answered, aloud. 
She remembered her flight that very morning toward 
the slowly opening many-coloured portals of sleep. 
Morning-glories might very well be growing on 
Sleep’s walls. 

But whom had she answered? Who had spoken? 
No one, of course. There was no one there to 
speak, except Kate herself. 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


232 

On either side the hall there was another bed¬ 
room. Kate merely looked in at their doors. One 
had been her mother’s, and it was entirely bare now, 
for all the furniture had gone to the barn-house in 
Ashland years ago. The other had been Grand¬ 
father Frazier’s room, and somehow Kate felt that 
she did not want to pry there. It would be like get¬ 
ting acquainted with him when his back was turned. 

Now there remained only the “playroom” and 
the upstairs “study”—a long room at the back of the 
house, the room where the windows had stood open 
that first night of Kate’s arrival—and ever since, for 
all she knew. From her very first entrance into the 
house Kate had been listening toward this room. It 
was in that room she fully expected to discover Elsie’s 
secret. It was really the goal of her pilgrimage 
through the house. But the nearer she drew to it 
physically the more she drew back mentally.' She 
was not exactly frightened. What did not frighten 
Elsie need not frighten her. It was simply uneasi¬ 
ness in the face of mystery. 

There was the playroom between, though. Kate 
was grateful to pause a minute in the playroom. 

The playroom was down a step, through a little 
low door. Kate had to bend her head to go through 
the door. It was the smallest room she had ever 
been in, about the size of a goodly closet. Shelves 
were built in all around the walls, leaving space only 
for the one little low window that reached the floor. 
Before the shelves, strung on brass rings to brass 


INTO THE ORCHARD HOUSE 233 

rods, hung dusty, faded calico curtains, yellow 
flowers on a blue background. Kate pushed back 
a curtain, jangling all its rings. The shelves held a 
jumble of toys, birds, beasts, carts, engines, and on 
the top shelf a row of dolls, some broken almost be¬ 
yond recognition as dolls, but two or three still 
healthy bisque beauties smiling blandly over her 
head at the opposite wall. 

There were three lilliputian chairs in the room, 
one a black rocker painted on the back and seat with 
flowers and fruit. In one corner there was a huge 
box of blocks, wooden building blocks that Great¬ 
grandfather Frazier had made for Grandfather 
Frazier when he was a little boy. 

Kate knelt by that box, and idly began construct¬ 
ing a house. She had always adored building with 
blocks when she was a little girl, and now the old 
fascination seized her; besides, she was putting off 
the minute when she would open the door of that last 
room. 

But as she completed the second wall of the house 
she turned suddenly and looked over her shoulder. 
Had she heard something? A rustling, like a dress 
coming down the hall and pausing at the door of the 
playroom? Whom did she expect to see bending 
down at the low door and looking in at her where 
she sat on the floor building with blocks like a little 
girl? Strangely, it was not the sixteen-year-old 
Katherine she had been imagining as her companion 
whom she pictured stooping down at that door to 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


234 

look in. It was Katherine’s mother, Kate’s grand¬ 
mother, who had died when Katherine was still a little 
girl playing with blocks. Only she would not look 
like an ordinary grandmother, of course. For she 
had died when she was only twenty-four. She was 
a young woman, very graceful, very gentle, lovely. 

Of course she wasn’t really there at the door, won¬ 
dering who had come in her baby’s stead to play in 
the playroom. Of course she wasn’t there with a 
spray of syringa flower at her belt. It was just Kate’s 
vivid imagination. She was sensible enough to know 
that. The rustling of her dress had been the leaves of 
the drenched apple tree boughs against the window 
pane tossed by a rainy breeze. And the syringa 
scent had followed Kate up here and even down into 
the little playroom. 

It was a low little room, so low that Kate could but 
just stand up straight in it. And it was entirely bare 
except for the shelves with their treasure trove of 
toys, the box of blocks, and the lilliputian chairs. 
But for all that the room was alive to Kate now. It 
was almost giddy with life. And it was a life that 
did not concern her. She was an intruder. She be¬ 
came uneasy as intruders are uneasy. 

But she was not driven away precipitately. She 
stayed long enough to replace the blocks in their 
place coolly. Then, still coolly, she stood up and 
went out of the playroom, closing the door softly 
after her. 

In the hall, however, she allowed herself to hurry. 


INTO THE ORCHARD HOUSE 


235 

The door to the last room, the study, was ajar. Had 
the figure of Kate's imagination gone on ahead to 
that room—the young mother? For an instant Kate 
hesitated with her fingers on the knob. 

“Psha! What are you afraid of! Silly!” 

Downstairs, the hall door, which she had left open, 
blew shut with a bang, A fresh downpour of rain 
rattled on the shingles just above her head. (There 
was no attic above this part of the house.) Kate's 
impulse was to run down and secure at least the 
staying open of the front door, so that she might have 
an unimpeded exit in case of panic. The door 
fastened open, she would come back and have the fun 
of discovering for herself Elsie's secret which was 
the mystery of the orchard house. 

But Kate did not follow her impulse. Instead, 
she squared her shoulders, lifted her head a little de¬ 
fiantly, and pushed back that last door. She stepped 
in. 

“Oh! Oh!” But it was not a shriek. It was 
just a soft “oh! oh!” of purest astonishment. For 
the room was occupied; but not by the ghost of her 
grandmother. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


THE LAST ROOM 


MAN was sitting leaning forward over a table 



1 ^ with his back to the three windows, his face 
toward the door. His arms were spread out on 
the table, his hands clasped. He leaned there 
waiting for something. It was Kate for whom he 
had been waiting, for he had heard every move¬ 
ment of hers almost since her first light step on the 


porch. 


Kate stood now, smiling at him across the room. 
Her sudden smile following upon her amazed “Oh! 
Oh!” surprised him almost as much as his being 
there at all surprised her. He was prepared for her 
being startled, angry, accusing, anything except 
charmed. On the tip of his tongue there waited a 
reassuring word. That was why he had not risen 
when she entered; he wanted to avoid any movement 
that might frighten her. But all his careful precau¬ 
tion was wasted. Kate was not frightened. She 
was charmed, purely and simply charmed. 

“Why, you are the boy,” she exclaimed, “the boy 
in the dragony, flowery picture frame!” 

But even as she spoke she realized that although 
it was the boy indeed, it was the boy grown older. 


THE LAST ROOM 


237 

The crisp curly hair was clipped very short and was 
almost entirely gray. And there were deep lines 
about his eyes and nose and mouth. The light in the 
face had grown, too, that peculiar light betokening 
gaiety of the spirit and sympathy. Yes, it was truly 
the boy, only the boy more so, in spite of lines and 
gray hair. 

“The dragony, flowery picture frame?” he re¬ 
peated after her in the voice of the stranger in the 
garden. 

He had spoken. He was real. Not just another 
one of her fancies. 

“Yes, in the top drawer of Mother’s desk. That 
boy. Only excuse me, I thought I was talking to a 
dream. Are you real?” 

The man laughed, a very jolly laugh, and nodded. 

“Did Mother know you would be here? Is that 
why she insisted that I come into the orchard house 
the first minute I could?” 

He shook his head. “No, she couldn’t know I 
would be here.” 

He stood up then. But as he moved Kate noticed 
that he took special care to stand between the win¬ 
dows where he could not be seen by any one who 
might be in the orchard. 

“You have made a mistake,” he said. “I don’t 
think I can be the person you think. My picture 
wouldn’t be in your mother’s desk.” 

But Kate nodded, perfectly sure of her facts. 

“Oh, yes, you are. Mother’s always had you. 


238 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

You’ve been our talisman for years, both of ours. 
And that’s funny, for neither of us knew about the 
other’s feeling until just before I came away.” 

His face had reddened. “Her talisman?” he 
asked, incredulously. 

“Just as much hers as mine. It was very funny. 
But it’s even funnier—of course I don’t mean funny, 
I mean strange—that I’ve found you here.” 

“But don’t you know who I am?” the man asked. 

“Only that you’re the talisman. I don’t know 
your name.” 

“Exactly. Your mother didn’t want you even to 
know his name. Well, time justified her. It ful¬ 
filled all their prophecies. He was a nobody first 
and a convict afterward. No wonder she didn’t tell 
you his name.” 

Kate looked at him steadily, trying to take it in, 
to connect it up. He went on: 

“Your mother didn’t tell you his name because it 
is the same as hers. She is too ashamed. I am Nick 
Frazier. Now you know.” 

The words sounded bitter, but the man’s manner 
belied them. He said it all with a friendly smile, 
seeming more concerned that Kate should get 
things straight and not be too shocked than airing 
personal bitterness. But Kate protested. 

“No, no. She did you some wrong once. That 
is why she couldn’t talk about you to me. But she 
did say that she knew it would come right sometime. 
She wouldn’t talk about it. So I mustn’t. But 


THE LAST ROOM 


239 

you know it isn’t at all as you say. She isn’t ashamed 
of you at all.” 

After a minute’s thought she added, “If you’re 
that boy, and you are, then she didn’t know anything 
about—about-” 

“That I am a thief?” 

“Yes. Jack Denton told me that this morning. 
Well, I’m sure she didn’t know that. And now I 
remember she said she had no idea why you and 
Aunt Katherine had quarrelled. She was puzzled 
by that in the letter asking me to come. She didn’t 
even know Elsie was living here. She didn’t know 
anything about you at all.” 

“Listen, Kate.” Nick spoke rapidly. “Tell your 
mother when you go back all that Jack Denton told 
you. But tell her, too, that it isn’t so black, not quite 
so black as it sounds. And tell her that all the King 
of the Fairies taught those two kids in the orchard 
I have learned since I went to prison. For I wrote 
‘The King of the Fairies.’ I wrote it in prison, 
thinking everything over. Tell her I shall never 
again accept another penny from any one or let any 
one help me. What I took from your aunt I’m pay¬ 
ing back to-day with the royalties on the book. Will 
you remember to tell her that?” 

Kate nodded. Yes, certainly she would remember. 
But her whole mind was taken up with delight that 
he, the boy in the dragony, flowery picture frame, 
was the author of their precious book. That was 
what mattered most, in this minute, to her. 


2 4 o THE VANISHING COMRADE 

He saw that she was not impressed with the fact 
of his having been a convict. That he was her talis¬ 
man come alive, and the author of “The King of the 
Fairies,” both at once, was tremendous enough to 
wipe out all the rest. 

“Elsie’s father wrote ‘The King of the Fairies/ 
that book! And she never told me!” 

Kate sat on the edge of the table and bombarded 
him with questions. He answered them all. There 
were places that had puzzled even her mother in the 
book. He clarified them for Kate now. “My new 
book is clearer ” he said. “I am learning better how 
to say what I want to say.” 

“Your new book! There is another!” 

“Yes, it will be published this fall.” He told her 
about that. She was enthralled. She clasped her 
hands and listened, the corners of her mouth tilting 
up like wings. 

Then it was her turn to talk. Nick was the sort of 
person who draws you out. In all her life Kate had 
never experienced such sympathy in a human being. 
That was Nick’s rare gift. She told him the story 
of her life, quite literally, at least, from the year she 
was seven, beginning with the day of her sharpest 
memory when she and her mother saw the fairy by the 
spring. It was very much on her mind now because 
of that experience at Madame Pearl’s and she told it 
all to Nick in detail. “How can it be explained?” 
she asked. “How could Elsie be just exactly that 
fairy?” 


THE LAST ROOM 


241 

“That’s a hard question,” he agreed. “But if 
there’s anything in what these fourth dimensional 
experts are saying—then it might be explained rea¬ 
sonably enough, even mathematically. You know 
they say time is the fourth dimension. Well, in 
that instant in the woods, they might say, you got 
somehow into a four-dimension world.” 

But Kate did not understand. Nick came from his 
station between the windows and sat on the edge 
of the table beside her, forgetting the hypothetical 
somebody in the orchard, and went into the subject 
more deeply. Kate followed his reasoning for a time, 
almost as though she were beginning to grasp some¬ 
thing of the meaning of it all, when, bang! She 
slipped back to her first position of ignorance. She 
didn’t understand a bit. 

Nick laughed. “It’s exactly the same with me,” 
he confessed. “I get a little farther than you do now 
in grasping it perhaps, and then ‘bang!’ just as you 
say, I lose the steps by which I got there. However, 
we can know that science itself is working toward 
some such explanation for that fairy by the spring of 
yours and its like.” 

“And so you don’t believe in fairies at all? I was 
really only looking into the future, at Elsie as she would 
be years away, in that mirror of Madame Pearl’s?” 

“Nonsense. Just because we have reason to be¬ 
lieve that what you saw wasn’t a fairy—since it 
was Elsie and couldn’t be—proves no case against 
the existence of fairies. Does it? Yes, I believe in 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


242 

fairies right enough, but that’s a matter of faith with 
me rather than reasonable conviction.” 

It was all very fascinating. Nick led Kate’s mind 
a race, and she felt as though she were “expanding.” 
She called it “expanding” when telling her mother 
of it later. Why, Nick did to you exactly what his 
book did, pushed roofs skyward and walls horizon- 
ward. And all the while he was so jolly. He laughed 
and made you laugh often, laughter with a special 
quality of joy in it. 

But suddenly, right in the midst of everything, he 
looked at his watch. “Do you know, it’s after 
five,” he said, “and I--” 

Kate interrupted what he was about to say. 
“After five! Why, Mother may be here already! 
I forgot about time! How could I!” 

“Your mother? Here!” 

“Yes, I telegraphed her to come.” 

Kate had quite forgotten her anxieties about Elsie, 
and how much she had imagined her in need of Kath¬ 
erine’s sympathy and help. Now everything came 
back with a rush. “I must run.” 

But Nick caught at her hand before she could run. 
“Kate!” he said, excitedly. “Why didn’t you tell 
me ? ” Then he became calm, but still held Kate back 
by the hand. He spoke very earnestly. 

“Bring her out here. Your aunt isn’t at home. 
No one need know. I must see her. Will you bring 
her ? Tell her it may be our very last chance to meet 
ever. Tell her that and make her come.” 


THE LAST ROOM 243 

Kate looked into the face so suddenly become pas¬ 
sionately earnest and said in surprise, “But of course 
she will want to come.” 

But as she sped through the orchard it occurred to 
her that she had solved nothing, got nowhere, or 
almost nowhere, in the mystery. What was Nick 
doing in the orchard house? Was he a fugitive from 
the law? Somehow, though she had begun to won¬ 
der again, she was not a bit bothered. Nick was 
Nick. Who wanted more? 

Katherine had arrived in a taxi from the station a 
few minutes earlier and presented herself anxiously 
at Miss Frazier’s door. She had no trepidations 
about meeting her aunt now, no thought of their 
standing quarrel. Her whole mind was taken up 
with her daughter. To say that she was worried 
w T ould be to describe her state of mind weakly. She 
was very nearly frantic. She had read and reread 
Kate’s telegram on an average of once every five 
minutes since its arrival, and in spite of all this study 
was no nearer guessing at the nature of the “mix-up” 
than she had been after the first reading. 

Isadora was not one of the servants who had known 
and loved Katherine, and so it is not surprising that 
when she opened the door and saw her standing there 
with her suitcase she took her for an agent. Kath¬ 
erine did not enlighten Isadora as to her identity, for 
she wanted to see Kate first of all, and for the present 
Kate only. She made this very plain, and then 
walked past Isadora and into the drawing-room with 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


244 

such an air that in spite of the old black velvet tam 
and general lack of style in the caller’s clothes, Isa¬ 
dora accorded her all due respect and went in search 
of Kate. 

But Kate was not to be found in the house. 
Would the caller wait? Yes? Very well. Isadora 
withdrew with several curious backward glances. 

As soon as Isadora was out of the way Katherine 
went through the French doors on to the terrace. 
She paced back and forth, looking toward the orchard 
house. Was Kate there? Had she forgotten the 
time? The maid Isadora had appeared calm and 
collected enough. There certainly was a sense of 
peace in the house. The “mix-up” perhaps was not 
such a desperate one, after all. Katherine couldn’t 
wait here, though, doing nothing—not after all those 
hours of waiting on the train. She walked across the 
terrace and down into the garden toward the orchard 
house. She met Kate just at the edge of the trees. 

Kate returned her mother’s embrace and kiss 
almost absently. Then Katherine held her off and 
looked at her. “You look all right,” she said, breath¬ 
lessly. “Kate, tell me nothing dreadful has hap¬ 
pened. Tell me you are all right. Quick!” 

“Yes, yes. Oh, Mother, don’t look like that! 
I am perfectly all right. It’s about Elsie. But 
even that’s all right now. Mother, her father is here. 
Nick is in the orchard house. He wants to see you. 
He says it may be the last time you ever see each 
other. He wants you to come right now.” 


THE LAST ROOM 


H 5 

But if Kate’s words reassured Katherine about 
Kate’s safety, they flung her into a new anxiety. 
“Nick? The last time? Why?” 

“Oh, I don’t know. Only come.” Kate pulled 
at her mother’s hand. 

Nick had come down the stairs and was waiting 
in the hall. When Katherine followed Kate dazedly 
in, and she and Nick stood facing each other, he ex¬ 
claimed involuntarily; to him it was as though the 
girl of eighteen he had known years ago had come 
back. In the black velvet tarn, raindrops sparkling 
in her hair that waved so softly at her ears and brow, 
raindrops drenching her eyelashes, her face vivid 
with emotion, her hands outstretched to him—why, 
she was as young and fresh as Kate herself, more 
beautiful even than he had remembered her. 

“I must talk with you.” He was very intense and 
at the same time shy. 

“Yes, of course. Of course we must talk.” 
Katherine’s tone implied, “ Why not ? Why shouldn’t 
we ? ” 

“In the parlour, then. I’ll put up a window. 
No, I can’t do that. Someone in the house might 
see.” 

“But why shouldn’t someone see? I don’t under¬ 
stand.” 

“There’s air enough from the door now. Smell 
the syringa!” 

Katherine was standing in the window, her back 
to them. Kate knew it was to hide strange tears. 




246 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

“The smell of the syringa did that,” she thought, 
with her quick understanding where her mother was 
concerned. “Smells are funny that way.” 

Nick spoke to Kate then, with gentle imperative¬ 
ness. 

“Elsie will be coming out here in a minute. Yes, 
we are running away, if you like. Go to her and tell 
her to wait. Tell her we will go surely to-night, but 
she is to wait until your mother comes in. You keep 
her, Kate—stay with her —until your mother comes 
in” 

“I don’t think I could. She will be furious with 
me. She wouldn’t do what I said.” 

“I’ll write her a note. She will understand that I 
want it.” 

He pulled an envelope from his pocket and 
scrawled a sentence, holding the paper against the 
wall. Katherine had taken off her coat and was 
now sitting in the deep chair in the window. Her 
tears had vanished, if there really had been tears, and 
her eyes were clear as happiness itself. 

But Kate was anxious as she hurried with the note 
to Elsie. If Elsie had hated her before for interfering 
now she would hate her all the more. 

She was sitting on the window seat in her room, 
dressed in the green silk suit and brown straw hat, a 
bright green raincoat thrown over a chair back near, 
and the suitcase of last night at her feet. Had she 
seen Kate come from the orchard house and return 
there with her mother? It was obvious that she had, 


THE LAST ROOM 247 

for the face she turned to Kate was wild and strained. 

“What have you been doing now?” she asked as 
Kate came into the room. “Who was that girl you 
took into the orchard house ?’’ 

“That wasn't a girl. It was my mother." 

“Your mother! Why?" 

“Your father wanted to talk to her. He sent you 
this." 

Elsie took the note and her face lost some of its 
wildness as she read. When she looked up she was 
puzzled but almost serene. 

“It's all right. We’re going away just the same," 
she said. “Nothing can stop us now. I’m only 
to wait until your mother comes in." 

Kate nodded. If it was her father Elsie was run¬ 
ning away with, she, Kate, had no more responsi¬ 
bility. She didn’t see how it was fair to Aunt 
Katherine or in any way right for them to do it that 
way, but she had no doubt that somehow it could 
be explained. Once understood, there would be no 
question of its rightness. So she put all that aside. 

She said, “Oh, Elsie, why didn’t you tell me your 
father wrote ‘The King of the Fairies’? Your very 
own father!" 

“So you know now? He told you? Well, now 1 
you know, then, that I didn’t lie. There was some¬ 
thing of fairy in the orchard house; Father had 
finished his new book there. It’s all fairies." 

“And you are going away now, for good ? Before 
Aunt Katherine comes back?" 


248 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

“If you will let me.” Needless to say this was 
spoken sarcastically. 

“But of course. Now that Eve seen your father! 
No harm can come to you now, not when you’ve 
got our talisman, alive, real, to look after you.” 

Elsie looked at Kate, puzzled. “What do you 
mean? Your talisman? You do say the queerest 
things!” 

Then Kate told her about the boy in the silvery, 
dragony, flowery picture frame. When she had 
finished, it was a new Elsie that faced her. 

“And your mother, too, felt like that?” 

“Yes, Mother, too. Why not?” 

“ Why—because-” 



CHAPTER XIX 


ELSIE CONFIDES 

/ T^HE girls stayed there, sitting on the window 
A seat, for over an hour, watching for Katherine 
to come from the orchard. It was showering again, 
sheets of rain silvering the gardens and drawing cur¬ 
tains of silver magic about the orchard, swirling 
them all about the orchard’s borders. There was 
plenty of time for the story which Elsie told haphaz¬ 
ardly and in broken sentences, led on by Kate’s 
interest, and her assurances that now she had seen 
Nick she would never try to interfere with any of 
their plans again. Kate’s story of the dragony, 
flowery picture frame had knocked all Elsie’s guards 
flat, too. Her story, straightened out, was this: 

Elsie’s earliest memory was of her father. She 
had fallen down the house steps and bumped her 
head. Nick, her father, had appeared as by magic 
to kiss the hurt away and run back into the house 
with her in his arms. She remembered him bending 
over her, washing the bruise with cold water; then 
came the smell of witch-hazel. And though this 
was her first conscious memory, still the very mem¬ 
ory itself held in it the inevitableness of this comfort 
from her father; so she was used to his ministrations. 

249 


n 





THE VANISHING COMRADE 


250 

The next memory was convalescence after measles 
when she was four. She was sitting up in a chair in 
a window over the street, wrapped in an eiderdown. 
Her father was reading to her from “The Psalms of 
David.” The words sang a beautiful song to her, 
especially when he came to “The Lord is my Shep¬ 
herd.^ And it was very comforting to have her 
father sitting there so quietly, near her, as though he 
meant to stay a long time. 

“But your mother?” Kate asked her. “Didn’t 
she read to you after measles, too? Don’t you re¬ 
member her?” 

Yes, Elsie remembered her mother, though she 
thought it was a later memory, and it was never a 
memory of mothering. Gloria had hummed in and 
out of the house like a humming-bird. Later, when 
Elsie saw a humming-bird for the first time, she felt 
as she watched it exactly as she had always felt 
watching her mother; and the pains that she took not 
to startle the little spirit away were exactly the pains 
she had always taken not to startle her mother away, 
when by chance she hummed near. Gloria looked 
like a humming-bird, as well as acted like one. 
Humming-birds fascinated Elsie, and her mother 
had always entranced her with the same fascination, 
no more. 

But sometimes the humming-bird scolded at her 
father, pecked at him, hummed all about him peck¬ 
ing. Then Elsie would run away, not fascinated 
any more. The scolding was always about money. 


ELSIE CONFIDES 


251 

Gloria needed money just as a humming-bird needs 
honey, and often there wasn’t enough. 

They lived in New York near Washington Square. 
Elsie was cared for by nurses—such a fast-marching 
procession of nurses in the same chic blue uniforms, 
provided by the humming-bird, that Elsie remem¬ 
bered them as “nurse,” not as individuals. Her 
father was the constant human factor in her life, the 
one person to be counted on. Gloria was merely a 
dash of colour beyond the nursery door somewhere, 
a shrill sweet voice at the piano, a swish of silk on 
the stairs. 

At eight, Elsie was sent to boarding school. But 
the school was in New York, and so her father still 
saw her almost every day, and on Saturdays he gave 
her and sometimes her friends “treats.” He took 
them to the theatre or picture galleries, or for beau¬ 
tiful walks in Central Park. Her mother never 
came to the school, but had her home once a month 
on Sundays for dinner. This was a grief to Elsie, 
not because she felt any need of her mother but 
simply because she would have been proud to show 
her schoolmates what a magnificent and fashionable 
mother she had; also she was humiliated by their 
curious questionings and pretended doubts as to 
whether she had a real mother at all. But Elsie 
was sure that her father was better than twenty 
mothers. She wouldn’t take a mother as a gift 
except for show purposes. 

Kate writhed at Elsie’s harshness. “Oh, you 


252 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

don't know, Elsie! Don't talk so! How can you? 
It is terrible." 

“That's what Ermina said when I talked to her 
about my mother. Ermina was my best friend, but 
she didn't stay out her first year at school. Her 
mother died, and she went home for the funeral and 
never came back. I knew that she loved her 
mother just as much as I loved my father. I hid 
away in my room when they told me her mother 
had died. I pretended I was sick. It was awful. 
But when I heard her go downstairs, at the very 
last minute while they were saying ‘good-bye’ to 
her at the door, I rushed down in my nightgown. 
I kissed her and hugged her and we cried terribly. 
Miss Putnam, the principal of the school, never for¬ 
gave me for having made Ermina cry when she had 
been brave and not cried at all before, and for having 
disgraced the school by standing in the door in my 
nightgown. But I have been glad ever since. I had 
to say ‘good-bye' and that I was sorry. And I 
don't think crying out loud was any worse than the 
crying inside that Ermina must have been doing. 
Do you?" 

Kate agreed with Elsie. She, too, was glad Elsie 
had gone to her friend in her sorrow, even if she had 
waited till the last minute for the courage. 

Vacations had been spent either at camps or at 
Aunt Katherine’s. When they were spent at Aunt 
Katherine's, her father was usually with her, having 
a vacation, too. And those were beautiful times. 


ELSIE CONFIDES 253 

Then, when she was twelve, came the terrible time. 
Nick had done badly in business. He confided this 
to Elsie because Gloria only wanted happy con¬ 
fidences, and besides, she was abroad, travelling 
with a party of friends. There was enough to pay 
his debts and leave him clear to start fresh, avoiding 
bankruptcy. But the debts paid, and his checking 
account reduced to zero, money must come from 
somewhere to go on with until business picked up. 
He knew a way in which two thousand dollars, if 
he only had it, could overnight be turned into ten 
thousand. He told Elsie about it, walking in Cen¬ 
tral Park, and said if he had only waited a little to 
pay his debts, and not acted so hastily in his fear of 
bankruptcy, everything would have been made right 
now. Aunt Katherine would loan him the two 
thousand, he felt sure, if he could only explain the 
nature of the speculation to her. But she was trav¬ 
elling somewhere in England, and there would never 
be time to get into touch with her. But he had the 
key to her safety vault in her Boston bank. He sud¬ 
denly told Elsie that he was going to Boston and 
would not see her again until Sunday. She under¬ 
stood that he was going to borrow, on his own ac¬ 
count, two thousand dollars from Aunt Katherine 
overnight, trusting to her unfailing generosity. 

Nick wrote Aunt Katherine all about it on the 
train as he went. From the vault he took two 
thousand dollars’ worth of securities which could 
easily be replaced. 


254 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

Aunt Katherine sailed for home before Nick’s 
troubled letter reached her in England, and the sec¬ 
ond letter, telling how the two thousand instead of 
blossoming into ten thousand had disappeared al¬ 
together, was never sent, because just as Nick was 
going out of his door to post it, the cablegram came 
announcing Gloria’s tragic death. That put all 
thoughts of the letter out of his mind, and when 
he did remember it he thought he had posted it as 
he meant to. It was found in the apartment months 
later by the people who sublet the place furnished, 
and simply dropped into a post box by them and sent 
to its address in England. It did not reach Miss 
Frazier until six months later. 

Miss Frazier on her arrival in Boston, and after 
a visit to her bank, reported the missing securities 
to the police. Nick’s immediate apprehension fol¬ 
lowed. Miss Frazier was on a train bound for Cali¬ 
fornia when that most amazing bit of news reached 
her by telegram. She was shocked almost beyond 
reason, and so horrified that it was impossible for 
her to find any justification for her adopted nephew. 
She offered him no help and had no words for him 
that were not bitter ones, but she did write to offer 
his “innocent child” a home with her on the con¬ 
dition that she should not speak her father’s name 
for the term of his imprisonment, or correspond with 
him while she was in her care. That letter ended, 
“If I had been one half as level-headed as my 
niece Katherine or Mrs. Van Vorst-Smith about you, 


ELSIE CONFIDES 255 

Nicholas, I should have protected you against such 
temptation, and we might have all been spared this 
catastrophe.” 

In Elsie’s parting from her father he had shown her 
this letter. (Now Kate knew why Elsie had grown 
cold always at mention of Katherine!) He had 
begged her to accept her aunt’s conditions. Indeed 
there was nothing else she could do, for her mother’s 
relations were now more estranged from them than 
ever. They had not written one word, even bitter 
ones. 

“Oh, Elsie! That must have been dreadful, not 
being allowed even to speak of your father, to act as 
though he were dead!” 

Elsie looked at her, her eyes black with remembered 
grief. “It was. I was so lonely for him, Kate, I 
expected to die” 

In time Nick’s two letters about the “over¬ 
night loan,” forwarded and reforwarded, had ar¬ 
rived in Oakdale. Then Aunt Katherine began to 
understand a little how his deed had not been so 
pitchy black as it had seemed in the first shock. He 
had done what she had always wanted him to do, 
counted on her understanding and generosity. It 
had been a crime—even Nick had accepted that 
judgment from the very first—and an utterly foolish 
and desperate deed, but now Aunt Katherine was 
sorry she had not lifted a hand to keep him from 
paying the penalty of imprisonment. She looked 
about to see what could be done, and ultimately was 


256 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

able to set wheels in motion that brought about his 
release at the end of two years instead of three. But 
she had not told Elsie. She had not been able to 
bring herself to speak of Elsie’s father to her at all. 

Nick wrote Miss Frazier asking her to meet him 
at a certain spot on the Common in Boston the day 
he was to be released. He wanted to discuss Elsie 
and what they were to do about her. He knew that 
his appearance in Oakdale would cause Miss Frazier 
painful embarrassment. He meant to avoid that 
for her. But when he had waited for hours at the 
place he had designated and she had not come, he 
had grown desperate. He was obsessed with a fear 
that Elsie might be sick. Why, she might be dead, 
almost, for all he knew. He had not had one word 
from her in two years. He boarded a train, not 
stopping to leave his suitcase at a hotel or check it 
in the South Station, and started for Oakdale. 

Elsie was just coming down the steps of Aunt 
Katherine’s house as her father got out of the taxi 
he had hired to avoid being seen in Oakdale and to 
gain speed to his destination. Aunt Katherine was 
away and most of the servants, for it was Thursday 
afternoon—a week ago last Thursday. Father and 
daughter had longed to be alone, unobserved by any 
curious eyes. The orchard house occurred to them 
as the best place to talk. They went around the 
house and managed to reach it, unseen, through 
the gardens. They had climbed in at a window at 
the back. Elsie was beside herself with happiness, 


ELSIE CONFIDES 


257 

and Nick was like a boy in his joy and relief about 
her. 

He told Elsie that the first year in prison he had 
written “The King of the Fairies/’ 

“There was so much in [it that he had told 
me about the ‘other side of things’ and the more 
life that even stones have that we don’t see, that 
when the book was published and I looked into it 
at the bookshop I knew right away it must be 
Father’s. He had always wanted to write. At the 
very first sentence I knew. It was like a letter from 
him. I read it and read it and read it. Do you 
wonder I didn’t want you to snatch it for yourself 
that very first morning, Kate?” 

The second book was almost finished when Nick 
came out of prison. Only a chapter remained. The 
publishers had promised an advance on the royalties 
as soon as the manuscript was sent them. The first 
book had already made over two thousand dollars. 
So the two decided, between them, that Nick should 
live in the orchard house for a week, long enough to 
finish the book, send it to the publishers and get their 
check. Then he would leave the two thousand dol¬ 
lars, the earnings from the first book, for Aunt 
Katherine. That was exactly what he had taken 
from her vault. With the new check of five hundred 
dollars, he and Elsie would go away together. He 
could write in the orchard house undisturbed, and 
without any one’s knowing he was there. Elsie 
could bring him some food now and then. But they 


258 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

would not run away together until he could leave the 
two thousand that really belonged to Aunt Kather¬ 
ine behind them. 

Kate interrupted there. “ But how can you! How 
can you treat Aunt Katherine so?” 

“It’s this way. Eve made Father see that she 
doesn’t like me. She is awfully kind, but that’s not 
liking. If I vanish, it will be just a relief to her. 
But she wouldn’t let me go, probably, if I told her. 
She would argue and try to keep me because it was 
her duty. Even Father sees that. Well, the new 
check has come. That was my special delivery 
yesterday. Father wrote Aunt Katherine a long 
letter and put the two thousand dollars in checks 
from his publishers into it. I’ve pinned the letter to 
her pincushion for her to read when she gets back 
to-night. Father hopes you’ll stay on here and your 
mother come back, too, and everything be set right at 
last. We don’t belong in the Frazier family at all, 
you know. We are sort of vagabonds, different, 
Father and I. Father thinks the quarrel between 
Aunt Katherine and your mother was in some way 
because of him. When we vanish, it will come right.” 

“Oh, but it won’t, and it wasn’t, and you aren’t. 
Imagine you a vagabond!” Kate exclaimed. 

“That’s the beautiful clothes Aunt Katherine gives 
me. They make me look just like anybody. But 
really underneath I belong in a tent or something like 
that. Anyway, I’d rather tramp the country with 
my father than live in a palace with any one else!” 


/ 


ELSIE CONFIDES 259 

Kate leaned toward her, taking her hand, not 
timidly now but with assurance. “So would I,” she 
agreed, heartily. “ So would any one, he’s so splendid 
and wonderful. And we are friends now, you and I, 
aren’t we? Will you write to me when you have 
gone ?” 

Tears brimmed Elsie’s eyes. “Really? Do you 
want me to write? Of course I will. Let’s be best 
friends, chums. Even when I’m in California!” 

Kate was embarrassed by the tears, but she was 
enraptured, too. She was tingling with happiness, 
for she was face to face with the vanishing comrade 
at last. 

“Why didn’t we feel this way sooner?” she asked 
with reason. 

“That was my fault. I’m sorry now.” 

The girls had almost forgotten why they were 
watching the rain-curtained orchard. But they 
were recalled sharply to the affairs of the minute by 
Effie’s voice in the hall not far from their door. She 
was calling down a stairway to Isadora. 

“Tell Julia Miss Frazier’s just come in and will be 
here for dinner, after all.” 

The girls started. Elsie sprang to her feet. Kate 
still had her hand. “ Don’t worry,” she said, quickly. 
“I will help you to get out without her seeing. You 
can go later to-night.” 

“But Father’s note! Pinned to her pincushion! 
She will read it now! Oh, why did she come back!” 

“I’ll go to her room and try to get the note before 


26 o 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


she notices it,” Kate offered. “You just wait here. 
Fll do my best.” 

“It’s on top of the tall bureau against the wall 
between the windows. Oh, do you suppose you can , 
Kate?” 

As Kate hurried through the passageways toward 
Miss Frazier’s bedroom she wondered whether she 
really could. What excuse should she give for dis¬ 
turbing Aunt Katherine while she was dressing? 

There was no time to think that out. Aunt 
Katherine called “Come,” almost before Kate’s 
knuckles tapped the door. 


CHAPTER XX 


A FAREWELL IN THE DARK 

A/TISS FRAZIER was sitting before her dressing 
A table attired in a blue silk dressing-robe. 

“Nothing the matter, Kate?” she asked, the 
minute that she realized it was Kate and not one of 
the servants who had entered. “Bertha tells me 
Elsie is better. I am glad I was able to get back for 
dinner, after all. Both you and Elsie have been on 
my mind. Was it a dull day?” 

“No, not dull a bit.” If Aunt Katherine only 
knew how very far from dull! 

Aunt Katherine put down the comb with which she 
had been “fluffing” her hair. She looked at Kate 
questioningly. Why was her niece here, and look¬ 
ing so discomfited, at the dressing hour? 

Kate had already spied the note, across the room, 
pinned to the pincushion on the bureau’s top. To 
the corner of her eye it appeared as big as a flag! 
How had Miss Frazier ever avoided seeing it? It 
fairly shrieked in the room. 

“Well?” Her aunt was expecting something of 
her. She must say something to make her presence 
reasonable. But what excuse could she ever make 
to go ’way across the big room to that bureau? In 
261 


262 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


this plight Kate blurted out the news that her mother 
was there. 

“Your mother!” 

Aunt Katherine seemed frozen for an instant in 
her surprise. 

“Not exactly here, but she will be in a few minutes, 
I think,” Kate stumbled on. “I wired for her to 
come.” 

“Why, Kate! Has anything gone wrong to-day? 
Elsie-” 

“No, nothing. Oh, I can’t tell you now. Will 
you wait a little while, until she’s here? I can’t 
explain anything yet.” 

“What time is she arriving?” 

Kate put her hand into her pocket and pulled out 
the yellow telegram. “Here, this tells,” she said, 
vaguely. Now, oh, now while Aunt Katherine was 
studying out that long message was the time to 
rescue Elsie’s letter. Kate made a move toward the 
bureau. But Miss Frazier moved with her! Her 
lorgnette lay beside the pincushion! Was there ever 
such luck! 

She picked it up, and read, moving the glass along 
the paper. 

She passed over the ambiguity to her of most of 
the message and fastened her attention upon the time 
of arrival stated there. “Five-five!” she exclaimed. 
“The train must be over an hour late. More than 
that. It’s half-past six now. Ring the bell, please, 
Kate, and tell Isadora to send Timothy to the station. 



A FAREWELL IN THE DARK 263 

He knows your mother and will bring her up here in 
the car when the train does get in. That back-way 
train is seldom on schedule, but this is unusually late. 
Tell Isadora to have an extra place laid, too.” 

Kate went over to the door and rang the servants’ 
bell there. Bertha, not Isadora, answered. Kate 
stepped out into the hall and whispered quickly, 
“Tell Eflie to set another place. My mother will 
be here for dinner.” The directions for Timothy 
were, of course, not given. Then Kate went back 
to her aunt, with how beating a heart! 

Aunt Katherine was standing with her face turned 
away, reading Nick’s letter. Kate never thought of 
fleeing. She stayed stock still, waiting for the storm, 
and deciding that even now Aunt Katherine need not 
know that Elsie had not yet gone. Kate expected 
something quite scenic from her aunt’s temper. 
Katherine had warned her that it was rare but 
devastating. 

After ages and aeons, to Kate’s tense mind, Aunt 
Katherine folded the letter, check and all. Then 
their eyes met. The one thing that the expression 
in her aunt’s eyes told Kate was that she was sur¬ 
prised, though glad , to find her still there. She 
stretched both her hands to her. 

“Kate, Kate,” she said with a rising inflection of 
happiness in her voice. “I’ve been all wrong, wrong 
about Elsie’s father, but even more wrong about 
Elsie! She has proved that by running away with 
her father. The blessed darling! The poor lamb!” 


264 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

Kate felt that she was on a merry-go-round of 
surprises. “You are glad she has run away?” 

“How can I be anything but rejoiced!” 

Kate turned a little cold at that. “And you 
won’t try to stop them?” she asked. 

“No, no need. Nick says he will give me their 
address as soon as they have one. Then I shall go 
to them, wherever it is. I will bring them back. 
Kate, she must adore her father! And all the while, 
just because she kept the agreement not to speak of 
him, I thought her indifferent to his sufferings, and 
unnatural. Why, from this, she must have suffered 
more than he.” Miss Frazier tapped the folded 
letter with her lorgnette. “He says that when he 
looked in at your party and saw Elsie so beautifully 
gowned, and having such a good time, his heart 
failed him; he decided that he must not take her 
away from all this. But Elsie herself made him see 
that she would never be happy anywhere but with 
him no matter how poor they were. It was Elsie 
who insisted on this harebrained scheme of running 
away! Elsie, who I thought hadn’t a grain of spirit 
or affection! Why, I’m just turned topsy-turvy by 
it all! Bless that poor child! And Nick wrote ‘The 
King of the Fairies.’ I ought to have guessed that 
instantly. Bless him, I say, too, the poor, abused, 
misguided poet. Do you remember St. Francis? 
You know he, too-” 

But Miss Frazier broke off in her song of praise. 

“You poor child, you,” she cried, meaning Kate. 



A FAREWELL IN THE DARK 265 

“This must all be a mystery. We’ll wait till your 
mother is here. Then we can talk it all over.” She 
hugged Kate as she spoke, much as though she her¬ 
self were a young girl in the most exuberant of 
spirits. 

“I shall wear my black lace,” she said, pushing 
Kate laughingly away from her. “We must be 
gorgeous for your mother. Hurry into your pink 
organdie. Why, she may be at the door this minute.” 

Thus freed, Kate flew to Elsie. Elsie was waiting, 
almost ill with anxiety. “Did you manage it?” she 
asked. 

“No. And she has read the letter. But she is 
glad , Elsie. There’s just to be no trouble about your 
getting away with your father at all.” 

“Didn’t I tell you!” Elsie exclaimed. “It’s just 
as I knew She is glad to be rid of me.” 

“We must plan quickly, though. How will you 
get out? It’s so dark now you can’t see the orchard 
well at all. Let’s plan.” 

Bertha was there, flushed and nervous. That 
morning Elsie had found it necessary to confide the 
secret of her father’s being in the orchard house to 
Bertha, if he was to have any breakfast or lunch that 
day at all. They had let the food supply get very 
low, she and her father, because, until he had looked 
in at the party, they had expected to fly last night. 
Bertha was horrified at finding herself part of the 
intrigue, but there was no help for it since Elsie 
could always “wind her around her little finger.” 


266 


THE VANISHING COMRADE 


Now, the almost distracted maid promised to stand 
by Elsie until the end. It would be the end for her 
as well as Elsie, for she would certainly lose her place 
to-morrow, and her character with it. For if Miss 
Frazier did not become aware for herself that Bertha 
had taken food to Nick in the orchard house this 
morning, and protected Elsie from the betrayal of 
her plans, Bertha meant to confess these things to 
her. 

The three in conclave now decided that Elsie 
should go, after Kate and Miss Frazier were in the 
drawing-room, to the window seat on the stair land¬ 
ing. There she could conceal herself behind the 
curtains with her suitcase until Kate came out into 
the hall below, on some pretext to be found by her, 
and whistled softly. The whistle would mean that 
Katherine had come in and that Elsie could slip away 
to the orchard house unobserved. 

All this was rather fun for Kate except for the sorry 
fact that when it was over she would have lost a 
comrade. To help stage a real runaway—well, it 
doesn’t happen every day that one may be so at 
the centre of exciting events. 

With Bertha’s help Kate was dashing into her or¬ 
gandie while Elsie stood in a balcony window watch¬ 
ing the orchard. Elsie had come in to be near Kate 
until the very last minute. But when a knock sud¬ 
denly sounded on Kate’s door Elsie wisely whisked 
away into her own room. 

“Come,” Kate called in a tremulous voice. Was 


A FAREWELL IN THE DARK 267 

it her mother? No, it was Aunt Katherine, and very 
fortunate it was that Elsie had been spry in her 
whisking. 

“I see you are dressed,” Miss Frazier said. “Come 
down, with me, then, and we will be together in the 
drawing-room when your mother arrives. I have 
ordered dinner delayed for her.” 

Kate thought quickly. “Just a minute,” she said. 
“There’s something in Elsie’s room I need. Will you 
wait?” 

Kate closed the door behind her as though by 
accident. But Elsie was not in the room. Kate 
looked all around but it was quite empty. The 
vanishing comrade had vanished, physically this 
time. There was the closet door. Was she hiding 
there? Yes, Kate heard a stir and saw dimly 
through the hanging dresses—expensive dresses given 
Elsie by Aunt Katherine, which she was not taking 
with her—Elsie herself squeezed back against the 
farthest wall. Kate closed the closet door behind 
her and groped her way across the dark closet. 
“It’s I, Kate,” she whispered loudly. 

The girls touched hands in the dark. They 
hugged and kissed each other, mostly on noses and 
ears, but no matter; it was a grief-stricken parting. 
“Good-bye, good-bye,” they whispered, and Kate 
said, “Write to me from California.” But she must 
hurry back before it came into Miss Frazier’s head 
to follow her in here with the idea of going through 
Elsie’s door into the hall. She ran back to her own 


268 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

room and in her anxiety created the impression of a 
small cyclone appearing. 

Miss Frazier looked with some surprise on the 
violence of her return. Then her eyes softened. 
Kate had not given thought to drying her tears. 
“ You mustn’t take it like this,” Aunt Katherine said, 
putting her arm through Kate’s as they went down 
the passageways together toward the big upper hall. 
“Elsie is happier than she has been in a very long 
time; she is off with one of the most satisfying com¬ 
panions in the world. Nick will take good care of 
her, infinitely better care than was ever taken here 
by me, for he knows her mind. And oh, Kate, we 
mustn’t let your mother run away with you, too. 
Then I should be alone! You won’t be without 
companionship. There are the Dentons just next 
door, and plenty of others who will be wanting to 
know you now.” 

“But they aren’t Elsie,” Kate responded, shame¬ 
lessly using her handkerchief, as the tears would keep 
flooding. 


CHAPTER XXI 


LIKE THE STARS 

TV/TISS FRAZIER was too excitedly nervous to 
take up a book or knitting when they were in 
the drawing-room. She wandered about, looking at 
the pictures on the walls, picking up magazines from 
tables to stare at them vacantly and replace them 
again, changing the arrangements of flowers, and all 
the time she was waiting for the sound of the opening 
front door and Katherine’s step in the hall. Kate 
was listening, too, but not in that direction. She 
expected her mother to come through the gardens 
and in at one of the French doors, closed now, with 
the rain beating against them. Kate was so ab¬ 
sorbed with the consciousness of Elsie waiting up on 
the stair landing for her chance to escape that she 
forgot her mother had no umbrella and that she 
might be waiting in the orchard house until this 
particular shower passed. She merely wondered 
what was keeping her all this time, and what would 
happen when she and Aunt Katherine met. Aunt 
Katherine would certainly be surprised when she 
caught sight of the expected traveller through the 
glass doors on the terrace. There would be questions 
and explanations about that. Nick would have 
269 



THE VANISHING COMRADE 


270 

warned Katherine, of course, not to give away the 
secret of his being there; but then what would she 
give as her explanation to Aunt Katherine ? 

Would she be expecting to find Aunt Katherine 
here at all, though ? Wouldn't Nick have acquainted 
her with the fact of Aunt Katherine’s supposed 
absence? In that case Katherine, unprepared, would 
be hard put to it to give any excuse for entering 
through the gardens from the back, rather than by 
the front door, ushered in by Isadora. Kate was on 
tenter-hooks. She felt that it was she herself who 
had caused the muddle. But what could she have 
done differently? If she had told Aunt Katherine, 
up in her room, that Katherine was here already, 
only out in the orchard house, Aunt Katherine would 
certainly have gone straight out there, and then 
what would have happened to Nick and Elsie? 

It was a bad ten minutes for Kate. She sat with 
a book open before her—what book she never knew 
—her eyes glued to the page, her ears cocked for a 
sound beyond the glass doors. Aunt Katherine 
stopped before her in her wanderings once or twice, 
about to speak, but she had too much respect for a 
reader to break into such obvious absorption as was 
Kate’s. 

Now Miss Frazier was standing looking through 
the glass of one of the doors into the rain-swept 
garden. Kate was seized with an idea. She must 
run up to Elsie in the window seat—she must manage 
it without her aunt’s noticing, now—and send Elsie 


LIKE THE STARS 


271 

to the orchard house to warn those two that Miss 
Frazier had returned. After that, responsibility 
would be theirs. They might fix up some scheme 
among them. Kate rose, softly, and took a step 
toward the hall. But she was halted by an excla¬ 
mation from Aunt Katherine. 

Miss Frazier had not turned; she was still looking 
out through the glass. Kate, looking, too, saw two 
figures just at the edge of the orchard. It was her 
mother and Nick. Well, she could do nothing now. 
They certainly were counting on Aunt Katherine’s 
absence, for they were coming toward the house. 
They were running toward the house, “between the 
drops,” dashing like school children. They were 
holding hands, and Nick was always a step ahead, 
rather dragging Katherine. Oh, why hadn’t Kate 
thought about an umbrella! They were laughing! 
Kate heard their laughter through the glass. So did 
Aunt Katherine. Her face, taken at that moment, 
would have made a perfect mask to personify Sur¬ 
prise. 

She opened the doors, and Katherine and Nick 
blew through them like two drenched leaves. The 
rain had blurred the glass, and the running pair had 
thought it was Kate standing there watching them 
and letting them in. When they saw that it was 
Aunt Katherine they stood and simply stared , with 
almost no expression, still gripping each other’s 
hands. 

Miss Frazier’s first words were unexpected ones. 


272 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

“Where is Elsie?” she asked Nick. That was all, 
just “Where is Elsie?” as though that, for the 
instant, was the thing of prime importance to her. 
It was Kate who could answer, though. Timidly 
she said, “Elsie’s up on the stair landing.” 

“Well, that’s all right, then. I thought she might 
be in search of a father in the South Station or some 
place. I thought, Nick, you two, you and Elsie, 
had run away.” 

Nick said, “We were going to. It is Katherine 
who has stopped us at the very minute.” He still 
held Katherine’s hand. Now he turned and looked 
at her. She looked back at him. Both Aunt 
Katherine and Kate, seeing what passed between 
their eyes, gasped. But it forewarned them, and 
Katherine’s words when she spoke where only an 
echo of what they had seen. 

“Nick and I are getting married, Aunt Katherine. 
We didn’t know you were here, or we wouldn’t have 
burst in like this. We had come to tell our children. 
Won’t you get Elsie, Kate?” 

“You and Nick marrying? So at last you’ve 
come to your senses!” That was Aunt Katherine. 

“Yes. And oh, Aunt Katherine, she knows every¬ 
thing about me, and still she wants to.” 

“Well, of course she knows everything about you. 
I fancy that's had publicity enough. But if this is 
the way you feel, Katherine, why didn’t you write 
me one word when Nick got himself into trouble? 
Or since? Your silence has been as cruel as any part 


LIKE THE STARS 273 

of it all. It said plainer than words, ‘Like Mrs. 
Van Vorst-Smith, I expected this sort of thing.*” 

“Why, Aunt Katherine! How can you? If I 
had known Nick was in prison, that something so 
terrible had happened, I should have written you 
right away. No, I should have come. Trouble like 
that would have brought us all together. But how 
could I know, when nobody told me?” Katherine’s 
beautiful eyes were like a grieved, accusing child’s. 
“And what hard-shelled little creatures we are! 
Why couldn’t my soul have told me?” 

“Don’t talk about your soul telling you.” Aunt 
Katherine was brusque. “What about your eyes? 
Don’t you ever read the papers?” 

Katherine dropped her head. She had probably 
often dropped it so in the past before her aunt. 
“You know,” she said, softly apologetic, “I never 
did read the papers as you do, Aunt Katherine, or 
keep up with current events.” 

Aunt Katherine laughed. It was a nice laugh. 
Kate visualized their brook in Ashland, when the ice 
was dissolving under the sun in the spring. (Yes, 
she did. It may seem a strange time for her mind to 
wander so far, but the fact remains. She saw the 
brook that zigzagged through the meadows back of 
their barn-house, as she had seen it last spring, its 
edges still frosted with ice, but down the centre the 
clear, laughing water coursing.) 

“Well, the news of Nick would hardly come under 
‘current events’,” Aunt Katherine was saying. 



THE VANISHING COMRADE 


274 

“But I do remember now that you never did take a 
proper interest in the papers. It never entered my 
head, though, that you wouldn’t have learned of this 
from a dozen sources.” 

Kate had been backing away toward the door, 
meaning to go for Elsie. But there was no need. 
Elsie had heard her father’s voice the minute he had 
come into the drawing-room. She had stolen down 
into the room now, and gripped Kate’s hand. To¬ 
gether the two girls moved back toward the three who 
were earnestly talking, still standing near the open 
door with the rain, all unobserved, discolouring the 
polished floor. 

Aunt Katherine was asking Katherine another 
question. “Why didn’t you take Nick seventeen 
years ago?” she asked. “You seem sure enough of 
yourself now. He wasn’t good enough for you 
then. Is he good enough now after all that has 
happened?” 

Again Katherine cried, “How can you!” But 
quickly she amended it. “Yes, you have a right. 
You know yourself, Aunt Katherine, what was the 
matter with me. It was pride of birth, blindness,, 
love of luxury, Mrs. Van Vorst-Smith’s head- 
shakings, a jumble of folly. You know perfectly 
what sort of a girl I was. But now I’m different. 
Now I’m nearer to being good enough for Nick.” 

“Love of luxury!” Miss Frazier picked on that. 
“You want me to believe your horrid description 
of yourself? If you loved luxury so much, why have 


LIKE THE STARS 275 

you been living as you have all these years, accepting 
nothing of the luxuries I longed to give you?” 

“But I tell you I changed. At twenty-two I was 
different from nineteen. I welcomed poverty then. 
When they told me that Kate and I had actually 
nothing to live on, I was delighted/’ 

“So it has been by way of penance, your hard life 
since?” 

“If you want to call it that. It’s been fun, too.” 

“But not fun for me.” Aunt Katherine’s eyes 
filled with tears. For a person of Aunt Katherine’s 
character to cry openly like that was as extraordinary 
a happening as though she had suddenly begun walk¬ 
ing on her hands. Only Katherine dared speak to 
her or try to offer comfort. She put her arms around 
her shoulders, and led her to a chair. There she 
made her sit down, and knelt by her side, leaning her 
head against her arm, stroking her hand. 

“Dear, dear, Aunt Katherine. Don’t, don’t,” she 
besought. “We can’t bear it. Oh, what have I 
done to you! What have we both done to you, 
Nick and I ? Forgive us, Aunt Katherine. Love us 
again.” 

At that, even in the midst of her tears, Aunt 
Katherine laughed, and as before Kate remembered 
the brook. “Again!” Aunt Katherine exclaimed. 
“Did you think I had ever stopped loving either of 
you mad children?” 

Nick nodded. “/ have forfeited your affection 
right enough. I understand why you couldn’t meet 


276 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

me, Aunt Katherine, two weeks ago when I asked you 
to. At least I understand now. I shouldn’t have 
asked it. But how else were we to decide about 
Elsie?” 

Aunt Katherine looked up at her adopted nephew, 
remembering. “But of course I did go to meet 
you,” she said. “Did you think I wouldn’t! I read 
the day, though, ‘Thursday’ instead of ‘Tuesday.’ 
It’s not often I blunder so stupidly. Then I made 
frantic efforts to locate you. But you had vanished. 
There wasn’t a trace. I set private detectives to 
work. To-day they took me all the way to Spring- 
field on a wild-goose chase. They were sure they 
had located you there. Clever, those detectives!” 

Aunt Katherine dried her eyes thoroughly as she 
spoke. She was scornful of her tears. “That 
excursion has tired me,” she explained. “The 
disappointment of it. I was so downhearted. Then 
having you suddenly here again, right here at home, 
without warning, safe and happy—well, perhaps 
a sphinx would cry.” 

It was Nick’s turn to kneel and rub his cheek 
against Aunt Katherine’s shoulder. She lifted a 
hand and stroked his hair. Kate, too, got as close 
to her aunt as she could. Only Elsie stood aloof, for 
an instant not in any way part of the group. It was 
Aunt Katherine who beckoned her, and took her 
hand. 

“Elsie,” she said, “I have been thinking you hard 
and selfish because you kept my rule not to mention 


LIKE THE STARS 


277 

your father. I have wanted to speak with you of 
him, but every time I led up to it I thought you drew 
away. It seemed to me that you were suffering, not 
for him, but for your own wounded vanity. Now I 
understand better. Perhaps, in time, you will for¬ 
give me.” 

Then it was Elsie’s turn to cry, and she did it so 
whole-heartedly that the family devoted its complete 
attention to calming her. 

It was later that Miss Frazier exclaimed as though 
she had just remembered it: “So you two children 
are to be married, and Katherine become a Frazier 
again! I wonder what Oakdale will say to that turn 
of affairs!” 

“If you really care what they say, Aunt Kathe¬ 
rine”—Katherine spoke quickly—“need they know 
at all? Ashland society notes will hardly penetrate 
here. And you’ve had quite enough to bear.” 

“Don’t think you could ever hide such a famous 
author as Nick has become, with only his first book, 
under a bushel for long, my dear. And as a matter 
of fact, quite apart from my joy that you are acting 
like a sane girl at last, and for once, I shall be proud 
to death of the marriage. I must call up the Gazette 
to-morrow, before ten. You remind me, Kate.” As 
well as pride there was a gleam of battle from Aunt 
Katherine’s eyes. 

“And it really doesn’t matter a bit what they do 
say, except for you, Aunt Katherine,” Katherine 
offered. “There are four of us now, four in this 


278 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

family. Enough of us to stand together, I should 
think, and not ask much from society/’ 

“Four? Five!” Kate left Elsie’s side on the divan 
to perch on the arm of her great-aunt’s chair. “Why, 
five of us are quite enough to start a colony and make 
our own society.” 

“Bless you, dear child, for counting me in,” Miss 
Frazier said with sheerest gratitude. 

“But of course, we all count you in, and there are 
five of us,” Katherine cried, “only we don’t want 
you to sacrifice too much.” And that was the signal 
for a second close formation of happy people about 
Aunt Katherine’s chair. 

“Sacrifice! Why, all I want in the world is my 
family. Don’t talk about sacrifice!” 

It was much later that Aunt Katherine began 
wondering about dinner. What had become of it? 
Nick and Katherine had utterly forgotten that one 
does r usually dine sometime before bedtime. They 
laughed at the suddenness of their return to earth. 

“Ring the bell, Kate, and see if the servants are 
dead or asleep,” Miss Frazier said. 

But at that instant Effie appeared in the door. 
She had heard Miss Frazier’s words. “Julia put 
dinner off an hour,” she explained. “It’s served 
now.” 

The “now,” however, was almost lost in Kathe¬ 
rine’s sudden pounce upon the servant and her 
hearty handshake. 

“Julia often takes a good deal upon herself,” 


LIKE THE STARS 279 

Miss Frazier observed, as linked with Katherine she 
led their little procession toward the dining-room. 

And their first view of the table justified Aunt 
Katherine in this criticism of Julia. The polished 
surface of the cherished antique was hidden under an 
enormous damask cloth. But worse than that, the 
jade dish with its exquisite floating blossoms had 
given way to a huge, and to Miss Frazier’s mind 
hideous, cut-glass punch-bowl full of roses, dozens 
and dozens of roses, pink, red, and yellow! 

“Why, they have made it into a festival,” Kathe¬ 
rine cried, surveying the effect. “Smell those roses.” 

“See them, rather,” Miss Frazier responded. 
“It’s the servants. They must have known you 
both were here; and yes, there are two extra places 
set.” 

“It’s Julia, the lamb!” Katherine declared. 
“Bless her dear heart. I saw her looking from the 
kitchen window as we ran in. I’d go and kiss her 
this second, but she wouldn’t approve of that until 
after dinner. Julia’s a lion for etiquette.” 

“ Please be so considerate as not to begin spoiling 
the servants, Katherine.” 

Nick and Kate and Elsie looked at Aunt Katherine, 
surprised. But Katherine simply answered lightly, 
“It’s they who spoil me.” She accepted the tone 
of her aunt’s command without dismay. She knew 
that the apparent sharpness had been only Aunt 
Katherine’s old habit of criticism reasserting itself 
toward a beloved niece, who to her mind could never 


280 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

possibly be anything but the child she had “ brought 
up.” Katherine had begun to understand her aunt 
to-night for the first time, to see her in the “ other 
light” that the King of the Fairies knew. 

“You’d better excuse yourself to wash your hands 
and remove that odd-looking rain-soaked tarn,” 
Aunt Katherine picked on her again, the minute they 
were seated. “Use my bathroom, it’s the nearest. 
And hurry right back, or this surprisingly sumptuous- 
looking soup that Julia has provided will get cold.” 

Katherine, obediently leaving the room, looked 
rather like a humble child, but Nick’s eyes, as he 
stood, followed as though hers might have been the 
departure of an empress. 

Late that night the doors between the girls’ rooms 
blew shut in the wind that was clearing the air of 
storm and rain. Never mind about the doors, 
though; the spirit of Miss Frazier’s rule rather than 
the letter was being kept to-night. For Kate and 
Elsie were curled up within whispering distance of 
each other on Kate’s bed. Both were in dressing 
gowns; they were supposed to have been asleep for 
an hour past. 

“I’ve never been abroad, or even anywhere out of 
New England,” Kate was whispering. “You went 
with Aunt Katherine last summer. Will it be so 
wonderful as I expect?” 

“We were only in England. And it will be a 
million times more wonderful than then, for we shall 


LIKE THE STARS 281 

be together. Why, two weeks from now, sooner, we 
ought to be in Switzerland.” 

“And two weeks ago we had never heard of each 
other/’ Kate added, j 

“And one day ago/’ Elsie took it up, “if you had 
told me that I would spend the rest of the summer 
away from my father, travelling in Europe with you 
and Aunt Katherine, I would have said you were 
crazy.” 

“Oh, Elsie,” Kate asked quickly, “I haven’t said 
anything, but is that awfully hard for you, leaving 
them in Ashland, while we go so far away?” 

“Not any more awful for me to leave my father 
than for you to leave your mother, I guess. Anyway, 
when they like the plan so much, we’d be funny 
daughters not to be pleased, too.” 

“You say ‘My father, your mother’—Oh, Elsie, 
do you realize in just a day or two it will be ‘our 
father and our mother’?” 

Elsie nodded. “Yes, Kate,” she said. “You 
have given me a mother and I have given you a 
father, and now we are a family. I feel, do you 
know, as though my heart might burst!” 

“Don’t let it,” Kate warned quickly. “You’ll 
need it strong for climbing the Alps! Imagine! Oh, 
how glorious it all is!” 

“And when we come home again and live in that 
funny little barn-house of yours—I am thinking of 
that,” Elsie whispered. “That will be better than 
travelling.” 


59310 68 


282 THE VANISHING COMRADE 

“The Hart boys are going to be simply flabber¬ 
gasted,Kate said, remembering them. “They 
kept telling me to bring you home with me, but they 
never guessed you’d be my sister when you did 
come.” 

“But do you think they will want to have any¬ 
thing to do with me?” Elsie asked, diffidently. 

“Why not, I should like to know?” 

“Well, you see, that letter they wrote-” 

Kate’s face reddened. “What a creature I was! 
Of course, they will forget all about that now. Even 
if you weren’t my sister and Mother’s daughter, 
they’d like you awfully just the first second they saw 
you. They couldn’t help it.” 

Before going to bed, finally, the girls put out the 
lights and went out on to Kate’s flowery balcony to 
look at the clearing night. They stood close to¬ 
gether, their arms about each other’s shoulders, 
their dressing gowns billowing in the fresh wind. 
Elsie lifted her face up toward the sky. “It’s going 
to be a fair day to-morrow,” she affirmed. “See 
the stars!” 

Kate’s face was lifted, too. “Yes,” she said. 
“Do you remember what the King of the Fairies told 
Hazel and her lover about the magic they had made 
their very own, how it’s safer than the stars from 
troubling? Well, do you know, as a family, I think 
we are going to have a lot of that magic.” 


THE END 



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